Vietnam’s regulations on reasonable assurance services and limited assurance services

According to the Vietnam’s Framework for assurance service contracts promulgated together with Circular No. 69/2015/TT-BTC of the Ministry of Finance of Vietnam, reasonable assurance services and limited assurance services are specified as follows:

- When providing reasonable assurance services, the auditor shall reduce the service risk to an acceptably low level in a specific situation of the service contract which is the basis for giving the auditor’s conclusion. The auditor’s conclusion shall be given in the form of his/her opinion about the result of measurement or evaluation of the subject matter by certain criteria.

- When providing limited assurance services, the auditor shall reduce the service risk to an acceptably low level in a specific situation of the service contract and higher than the risk of reasonable assurance services. This is the basis for giving the auditor’s conclusion. The auditor’s conclusion shall be given in the form of his/her opinion about the case, whether or not the auditor finds issues that make he/she believe that information about the subject matter contains material misstatements according to the procedures or collected information. Contents, schedule, scope of procedures for limited assurance services is more limited than those of reasonable assurance services. However, they are planned to reach a level of assurance that is acceptable to the auditor. The acceptable level of assurance is the level of assurance that an auditor reaches which might enhance the degree of confidence of users of information about the subject matter at a remarkable level.

Besides, among limited assurance services, the acceptable level of assurance may vary from above the minimum level of assurance (the level that builds up development of users of information about the subject matter at a remarkable level) to below the reasonable level of assurance. Auditors must utilize the professional judgment to determine the acceptable level of assurance within that spectrum depending on the specific situation of the service contract, including necessary information about a group of users, criteria, and subject matter. In some cases, consequences for inappropriate conclusion could be enormous. Therefore, auditors must execute reasonable assurance service contract to reach an acceptable level of assurance in such cases.

View more details at the Circular No. 69/2015/TT-BTC of the Ministry of Finance of Vietnam, effective from January 01, 2016.

Ty Na

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