Professional skepticism
§ Professional skepticism is a key element of a quality audit
§ Professional skepticism means:
· Not accepting the evidence you have gathered at face value
· Continuing to pursue all avenues of inquiry on the topic at hand
· Critically assessing evidence without being overly suspicious or cynical
· Increasing your awareness of how supporting documentation is selected & the amount of documentation that is collected
· Corroborating management explanations or representations concerning material matters
§ Your assessment should include whether:
· Evidence may be misleading or incomplete
· The person providing the evidence lacks subject matter competence or is motivated to provide evidence that is misleading or incomplete
§ All of us have a professional responsibility to ask more probing questions, critically analyze the answers, & be sure we have used all of the evidence presented