The purpose of this manual is to cover the government auditing standards—only. And there is plenty to talk about.
How the Yellow Book is organized
One key to understanding the Yellow Book standards is to get comfortable with the way the standards are organized. The standards are conveniently organized by introductory material, general standards, and financial, attestation, and performance standards.
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CHAPTER 1: Introduction and types of audits—the why of the Yellow Book and a review of how to determine what type of engagement you are dealing with
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CHAPTER 2: Ethical principles in Government Auditing—a new chapter reminding us of our responsibility to the public
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CHAPTER 3: The general standards—these standards on independence, competency, professional judgment, and quality control apply to all types of engagements
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CHAPTER 4: Financial audit fieldwork standards
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CHAPTER 5: Financial audit reporting standards
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CHAPTER 6: Attestation engagement fieldwork and reporting standards
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CHAPTER 7: Performance audit fieldwork standards
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CHAPTER 8: Performance audit reporting standards
The GAO holds to a rule that the Yellow Book will only be eight chapters long. I don’t know why, but they do! So no matter what they add, the number of chapters remains the same. For instance, chapter 2 was added in the 2007 revision. But rather than add another chapter to the book, they squeezed the original content of chapter 2 into chapter 1. And the attestation fieldwork and reporting standards are all rolled up into one chapter—one very long chapter—instead of allowing two chapters.
This self-study manual will be organized in the same order as the Yellow Book chapters. I will excerpt different sections of the Yellow Book and include them here.
