San Diego State University
Charles W. Lamden School of Accountancy
ACCTG 626
Auditing and Assurance Services
Fall, 2013
Instructor:
Jim Ledwith
Email:
ledwithj@mail.sdsu.edu or jledwith88@gmail.com
Office:
SSE 2419
Office Hours:
Wednesdays from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM or by appointment
Course Goal:
This graduate course is designed to give students an introduction to
auditing and assurance services that build on financial accounting (ACCTG 620) and accounting
information systems (ACCTG 621), and increase students’ awareness of the ethical dimensions
of accounting.
MSA Program Goals:
MSA students will graduate with:
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Communication skills
Group/interpersonal skills
Ethics
Research skills
Global/international skills
ACCTG 626: Auditing and Assurance Services contributes to these goals through its student
learning outcomes.
Course Learning Outcomes:
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At the end of this course, you should be able to:
Evaluate and communicate the reliability of organizational
information by applying professional standards,
Apply accounting and auditing standards, theories and regulatory
guidelines to the practice of accounting assurance services,
Compare and contrast the need for due professional care in various
professional engagements,
Analyze management’s evidence for competency and relevancy,
Identify and analyze ethical consequences of choices and decisions
made by management and accountants.
Course Materials:
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Principles of Auditing and Assurance Services, 19th edition, Whittington & Pany,
McGraw-Hill, 2014.
McGraw-Hill’s ConnectPlus Accounting can be purchased with your textbook as
a package or at the McGraw-Hill website. It is not required for this course, but
can be purchased for optional resources, practice problems, etc. If you want to
use ConnectPlus, I can give you more information on how to register.
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Students can make use of the text’s resources at the Online Learning Center (OLC) at
http://www.mhhe.com/whittington19e which has Power Point slides, multiple choice
questions, cases, ACL cases and links to various audit websites. The website is free to
students.
Various websites and other materials that will be posted to BlackBoard.
Course Activities:
Being prepared and actively participating are key ingredients to your success in this class. You
will have the opportunity to practice what you learn with in and out-of-class practice
assignments. However, except as specifically noted in the schedule of classes, these assignments
will not be graded; they serve as a method to practice what you have learned and gauge your
understanding of the topics covered. In addition to the assignments that will be graded, you will
have a group project and a number of exams which are briefly summarized below:
Group Project: The group project will consist of identifying an actual audit failure and
presenting a detailed discussion of the audit procedures that should have been applied to discover
the fraudulent financial reporting and avoid the audit failure. The group project is due the 2nd to
last day of class and is worth 23% of your grade.
Exams: Four exams will be given (worth 23% each), and the lowest exam score will be
discarded for a total of 69% of your grade attributed to exams. There will be no make-up
exams!
Grading:
As noted above, the grades will be determined based on your performance on the following
activities:
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Group Project
Exams (3 at 23% each)
Initial written assignment
Graded Homework Assignments
23%
69
4
4
Grading Policy: As you can calculate, 77% of your grade will be based on your individual
efforts and 23% will be based on your group effort. Grade ranges are as follows: 90% and above
will result in a grade in the A range, 80%-89% will result in a grade in the B range, 70%-79%
will result in a grade in the C range. Any grade below 70% does not evidence graduate level
work and will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
Blackboard Courseware: We will use Blackboard Courseware to communicate during the
semester. You are automatically registered on Blackboard when you enroll in the course. It is
your responsibility to make sure your email address on Blackboard is correct. Only you can
change it. Please check Blackboard and your email frequently as I will use both of these
electronic mediums to communicate with you during the semester.
Academic Misconduct: Academic misconduct is defined as dishonesty in academic work.
Examples include plagiarism, cheating and the giving or receiving of unauthorized aid in
assigned work. Penalties range from receiving an “F” on the work in question, an “F” in the
course or dismissal from SDSU. This class will follow the university policy in regard to
cheating or plagiarism. If you have any doubts as to what constitutes such behavior, please see
me with any questions before you submit your assignment.