Problem:
The general fact that planning is important in the auditing profession should not be a shock to anyone. Auditing like many things is life require planning in order to be successful.
The fact that planning involves process steps, research and documentation is really a standard type process that many of use in our daily life when planning an activity.
So the question should be at this point what is different? Well first of all the main difference is that planning normally involves a short time frame in the case of auditing. That is you normally do not have months to prepare and secondly the process is not a research paper.
With that said there are important aspects of auditing planning including:
1. Knowledge of the Industry
2. Knowledge of the company
3. Review of the accounting policies and practices.
4. Discussion with key management employees
5. Presentation to the Board of directors
6. Review of major controls, risk and opportunities.
The point here is that the process is involved and extremely critical to the overall success of the audit.