Principles of Auditing and Other Assurance Services (Hardcover)

by Ray Whittington (Author), Kurt Pany (Author), O. Ray Whittington (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Principles of Auditing remains the #1 Principles of Auditing text using the balance sheet approach. Whittington/Pany presents concepts clearly and proactively monitors changes in auditing, making the relationship between accounting and auditing truly understandable. The 13th edition maintains the organization and balance sheet orientation, while adding and enhancing the timely topics of Attestation, Assurance Services, Fraud, Electronic Commerce, and the latest auditing standards to meet the needs of the current marketplace.

About the Author
Ray Whittington is chairman of the accounting department at San Diego State University, and received his Ph.D. from the University of Houston. He has also been the Director of Audit Research for the AICPA Kurt Pany is a professor of accounting at Arizona State University, and received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois. He has been the Director of Audit Research for the AICPA and remains an active member of the AAA.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 832 pages
• Publisher: Irwin/McGraw-Hill; 13th edition (July 19, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 007232726X
• ISBN-13: 978-0072327267
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,428,851 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Best Auditing Book Available, May 18, 2004

By	Diego Banducci (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

During the 16 years that I have taught Financial Auditing at the university level I have been constantly on the lookout for the best available book. I chose Whittington & Pany because (1) it is succinct, (2) it presents auditing concepts clearly (although the authors do sugar coat the accounting scandals of the past 20 years and fail to give credit where credit is due by naming the firms involved in them), (3) the page layout is attractive and easy to read, and most importantly (4) my students preferred it over other texts (one student told me that she chose my class after looking through the assigned texts for all of the Auditing sections, an excellent idea).

The current (15th ed.) has been brought up to date with a limited discussion of Sarbanes-Oxley and the PCAOB.

The material is obviously dry, but I found that it was possible to make my classes more interesting by incorporating newspaper accounts of the more egregious audit failures in the assigned readings, and by being honest about the arrogance, greed and stupidity that are all too typical of the accounting profession today. This practice has brought complaints by the local offices of the major firms, to which my department head replied that they are welcome to come speak to the classes to explain their side of the story. To date, they have not accepted the invitation.

2.0 out of 5 stars Audit Voodoo!, March 29, 2009

By	Xavier F. Hussenet "xavierfrancois" (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Principles of Auditing and Other Assurance Services (Hardcover)

I just finished a course in this book and got an A at UCLA. Auditing is very complicated because it is more a mindset than a perfect science. However, with some effort, it can be broken down and codified in a way that makes its different parts articulate clearly, succinctly and quickly. Enter the academics, and forget about it. This book is beautifully written by people of clearly superior intelligence, but all that verbiage and gratuitous self-importance only contributes to a maelstrom of confusion . This book obviously relies on words that have a precise meaning in auditing, but parsing the elegant prose is a total nightmare. Each phrase takes a least three words for a clause where one would be clear. Add to that the incomplete lists of definitions at the end of each chapter (god forbid a definition should ever be redefined in context from one chapter to the next,) the incomplete at best index, and what might be called audit-voodoo: you are in for a nightmare quarter. Every precise discipline has a bag of tricks: you recognize the setup, you pull out the correct trick, and you move on. The authors here are more interested in the theoretical acrobatics of their elegant prose than they are in actually preparing you for the real-life experience of the CPA Exam.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Unsatisfactory , February 20, 2009

By	Cassie Mowbray (Harrisonburg, VA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Principles of Auditing and Other Assurance Services (Hardcover)

I never received this purchase so it is difficult for me to rate my experience. However, I can say one good thing about amazon is that I am getting refunded for the amount that my purchase cost because of never receiving my package. I don't blame amazon but from now on I just have to be more cautious about choosing the right seller. Thanks.