The standards behind the work
Screen by screen: which standards apply where
One table that takes you from the thing you are looking at to the document that governs it.
The map
| ByteBook screen | What you are doing | Accounting standard | Auditing standard |
|---|---|---|---|
| Invoices | Recognising revenue, raising a tax invoice | NZ IFRS 15.31 | — |
| Bills to pay | Recording a liability and an expense | NZ IAS 1.54 | ISA (NZ) 500.6 |
| Bank & coding | Coding transactions and reconciling | — | ISA (NZ) 505.10 |
| Reports → Profit and loss | Reporting performance | NZ IAS 1.99 | — |
| Reports → Balance sheet | Reporting position | NZ IAS 1.15, NZ IAS 1.54 | — |
| Reports → Money in and out | Reading the cash movements | — | — |
| Reports → Who owes what | Aged debtors and creditors | NZ IFRS 9.5.5.15 | ISA (NZ) 505.10 |
| GST | Building the return from the ledger | — | — |
| Reports → IRD working papers | Current tax working papers | NZ IAS 12.46 | — |
| Transactions | Reading the entry behind a document | — | ISA (NZ) 230.8 |
| Audit trail | Proving the record has not changed | — | ISA (NZ) 500.7 |
| The chain | Reading the record at three scales | — | ISA (NZ) 500.7 |
| Checkpoints | Witnessing what the record said, and holding a receipt for it | — | ISA (NZ) 230.8 |
| How a number gets in | Understanding the controls over what is recorded | — | ISA (NZ) 315.26 |
| Hand it over | Giving evidence to somebody outside the business | — | ISA (NZ) 230.8 |
| Assurance → A07 | Manual entries | — | ISA (NZ) 240.32 |
| Assurance → A09 | Cut-off | NZ IAS 10.8 | ISA (NZ) 560.6 |
| Assurance → A11 | Expenses | NZ IAS 16.15 | ISA (NZ) 500.7 |
| Assurance → A14 | Reproducing the reports | — | ISA (NZ) 500.6 |
| Assurance → A15 | Gaps, repeated fingerprints, witnesses | — | ISA (NZ) 500.6 |
| Assurance → A16 | Who entered, voided and worked out of hours | — | ISA (NZ) 240.32 |
| Sealed packs | Closing and protecting a period | — | ISA (NZ) 230.14 |
| Practice businesses | Learning on books that already exist | — | ISA (NZ) 230.8 |
| Setting up roles | Who may change the books | — | PES 1 R112.1 |
How to use it
Three ways, depending on what you are doing.
When you are learning a screen. Read the row before you start. Knowing that the bank reconciliation is tied to the standard on external confirmations changes how you read the page: you stop looking for a balance that agrees and start looking for evidence that comes from outside the business.
When something looks wrong. Find the row, open the standard, and read the paragraph. The standard usually tells you what the correct treatment is and, just as often, what it is not.
When you are writing a working paper. Cite the paragraph. Not the standard's name, not the general topic: the paragraph. A reference that cannot be checked is not a reference.
A worked example: a bank line coded as an expense
Suppose the bank statement shows $1,150 paid to a supplier, and you code it to expenses when it should have been a payment against a bill.
- What is wrong? The supplier's balance still shows as unpaid, and an expense has been recorded twice: once when the bill was entered, and again from the bank line.
- Which accounting question is it? Whether the expense is recognised at the right amount in the right period — a matter of faithful representation NZ IAS 1.15.
- Which procedure catches it? A05, creditors, which reports money the business owes and checks for a bill paid twice. The GST figures move as well, which A06 will see.
- Which auditing standard applies? The reliability of the bank statement as evidence ISA (NZ) 500.7, and the requirement that misstatements found during the audit are accumulated and communicated ISA (NZ) 450.8.
- How is it fixed? Open the coding entry under Transactions and choose Void and reverse. Then record the payment against the bill, from the bill itself, so the payment and the bill stay linked. Both the wrong entry and the correction stay in the record, and ISA (NZ) 230.8 explains why that matters.
That five-step shape — what is wrong, which accounting question, which procedure, which auditing standard, how to fix it — is the shape of a working paper. It works for a mis-coded bank line and for a misstated provision alike.