Teaching Students About Audit Reports: An Interactive Approach

SUMMARY:  This instructional case provides an interactive approach to teach students about various components of the audit report as well as different types of reports. The materials in this case provide instructors with a diverse set of publicly available audit reports that can be used to illustrate several reporting issues in an undergraduate or graduate class. After gaining an appreciation for the existing structure of audit reports, students are asked to apply critical-thinking skills to determine whether the information communicated in these reports is informative to various interest groups. To facilitate classroom discussion on the topic, the case incorporates information from recent regulatory proposals that would significantly change existing audit report disclosures.