steps necessary to Plan/Start the Audit Engagement

1. Obtaining an understanding of the entity's business and the industry in which it operates.
    
2. Inquiries concerning the entity's accounting principles, policies and practices.
    
3. Inquiries concerning the entity's procedures for recording, classifying and summarising transactions, accumulating information for disclosure in the financial statements and preparing financial statements.
    
4. Inquiries concerning all material assertions in the financial statements.
    
5. Analytical procedures designed to identify relationships and individual items that appear unusual. Such procedures would include:
    
   • Comparison of the financial statements with statements for prior periods.
   • Comparison of the financial statements with anticipated results and financial position.
   • Study of the relationships of the elements of the financial statements that would be expected to conform to a predictable pattern based on the entity's experience or industry norm.

   In applying these procedures, the auditor would consider the types of matters that required accounting adjustments in prior periods.
    

6. Inquiries concerning actions taken at meetings of shareholders, the board of directors, committees of the board of directors and other meetings that may affect the financial statements.
    
7. Reading the financial statements to consider, on the basis of information coming to the auditor's attention, whether the financial statements appear to conform to the basis of accounting indicated.
    
8. Obtaining reports from other auditors, if any and if considered necessary, who have been engaged to audit or review the financial statements of components of the entity.
    
9. Inquiries of persons having responsibility for financial and accounting matters concerning, for example:
    
   • Whether all transactions have been recorded.
   • Whether the financial statements have been prepared in accordance with the basis of accounting policies indicated.
   • Changes in the entity's business activities and accounting principles, policies and practices.
   • Matters as to which questions have arisen in the course of applying the foregoing procedures.
      
   • Obtaining written representations from management when considered appropriate.

The list is not exhaustive, nor is it intended that all the procedures suggested apply to every engagement.