Audit Introduction Letter

Larry Lancaster
Chairman, President, and CEO
Apollo Shoes Inc.
100 Shoe Plaza
Shoetown, ME 00001

Dear Mr. Lancaster:

Thank you for your interest in our services. Here at Anderson, Olds, and Watershed CPAs, LLC, we value your business and strive to meet all of your expectations. Our firm offers various types of auditing services, including operational, compliance, and financial audits, as well as several attestation services, including reviews and audits of historical financial documents and audits of internal control over financial reporting. The purpose of this letter is to inform you of the different auditing and assurance services offered by our firm, the benefit each of these services provides to you, our client, and to inform you of the requirements for meeting the standards for the services we offer. Additionally, I would like to outline my role in providing these services to your company, Apollo Shoes.

Auditing, as defined by Arens, Elder, and Beasley, is a technique performed by Certified Public Accountants (CPA) whereby the accountant accumulates and evaluates evidence to determine the financial statements’ compliance with established criteria, such as Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). An audit provides users with assertions to the financial statements’ reliability, in addition to the assertions provided by company management. Audits are one type of assurance service. According to Arens et al., assurance services, performed by CPAs or a variety of other professionals, “improves the quality of information for decision makers.” Attestation services are a type of assurance service provided by CPAs, in which the accounting firm issues a report about another party’s assertions.  

Description of Services

First, I would like to differentiate between a review and audit of historical financial statements. Both offer assurances by management to the financial statements’ compliance with accounting standards and that the...