Chapter 2 Organization and Structure of the Auditing Profess(7)

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defined by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) in the first of a series of Statements on Standards for Accounting and Review Services (SSARSs). Those statements resulted from the AICPA's recognition of the need for professional services that are less than an audit, but that provide some assurance about the reliability of a nonpublic entity's financial statements. Reviews are discussed further in Chapter 30.

(iii) Agreed-Upon Procedures Engagements. Accountants sometimes are engaged to perform agreed-upon procedures to specified elements, accounts, or items of a financial statement. In these engagements, the parties agree on the procedures to be performed, and use of the resulting report is limited to those parties. These agreed-upon procedures

engagements are discussed further in Chapter 30. Other types of agreed-upon procedures engagements fall under the attestation standards and are discussed in Chapter 31. (iv) Attest Engagements. In an attest engagement, the accountant provides written

assurance about an assertion or assertions made by another party. The definition of an attest engagement is broad and covers a variety of assertions. For example, an accountant may be engaged to examine or review, and report on insurance claims data or enrollment and attendance data for a college. While attest engagements typically are undertaken by audit personnel, at times they are performed by personnel specializing in some of the

"nonassurance services" offered by accounting firms, as described below. (Attest

engagements are described further in Chapter 31.)

(v) Other Assurance Services. In an engagement to provide assurance services beyond those currently defined in the authoritative professional literature, the objective is to improve the quality of information, or its context, for decision makers. Since the particular set of

information that is used by a specific decision maker to make a specific decision will vary with the circumstances, the assurance provider must be able to identify what information is relevant and determine how and when to develop and present that information to the decision maker. The AICPA plans to develop measurement and reporting criteria to assist the assurance provider that will be sufficiently broad so that they can be customized to fill the needs of

individual decision makers. While assurance services may be undertaken by audit personnel, they also may be performed by personnel specializing in some of the "nonassurance services" offered by accounting firms, as described below, particularly since those individuals may have the competencies appropriate for providing those services.

(b) Nonassurance Services

Accounting firms provide nonassurance services to their clients in the form of compilations, tax services, and consulting services.

(i) Compilations. A service performed by CPAs that is related to assurance services but does not result in the expression of assurance is a compilation. A compilation consists of presenting information in the form of financial statements without expressing any opinion on them. Compilations are discussed further in Chapter 30.