Decomposition Approach in Enhancing Auditors' Fraud Risk Assessment

Auditors' task of assessing fraud risk is a critical step that affects auditing planning and procedures; especially after the current major financial scandals. Several prior studies recommend that a decision aid is an effective way to enhance fraud risk assessment and professional skepticism. Following the recommendation in the current standards (e.g., Canadian Institute of chartered accountants, IAASB, AICPA (SAS No. 82 and 99)), along with fraud triangle factors, this study suggests a decomposition approach that employ SAS No. 99 factors and decompose them in a Throughput model (TP) which is suppose to work as a decision aid. Throughput model (TP) model break up the decision making into four main dominant concepts: perception (P), Information (I), Judgment (J) and decision Choice (D). This decision aid is expected to be beneficial in the performance of comprehensive fraud risk assessments, and convey the auditor's attention to wide classes of problems especially when they are connected with the SAS No. 99/ ISA 240 requirements.