audit standard

Under attestation engagement, an evaluation of subject matter would have already been conducted by the responsible party against a set criteria. As this evaluation is usually given in the form of a report issued to the intended users by the responsible party. This report is actually a claim by the responsible party of a fair evaluation of subject matter. On that assertion made by the responsible party practitioner is asked to confirm whether such assertion of evaluation is fair or not. An engagement to attest the assertions of responsible party is called attestation engagement. And at the conclusion of attest engagement, practitioner will issue a report in which he may word his opinion as follows:
Example 1:
In our opinion, the responsible party’s assertion that forecasts has been prepared on best estimate basis, is fair.
Example 2:
In our opinion, the responsible party’s assertion that internal controls are working effectively, is fair
So, from above discussion we understood that attestation engagements are a sub-set of many different forms of assurance engagement in which a practitioner issues a report to attest the assertions of against a set criteria. However, assurance engagements is just any engagement in which user’s degree of confidence of is reinforced which need not to be attestation
When dealing in any kind of business, it is very likely that one will, at some point, come across the need for assurance services, attestation services or auditing services. These common accounting practices are needed and used in many different scenarios, and, more often than not, are performs by licensed certified public accountants, or CPA's as part of a service to a business client. In order . to better figure out which, if any, of these services are needed, it is imperative that one understand the principal differences between the three.An assurance service is usually requested and completed when it is necessary to better gauge a risk and the reliability of the