Take My Liberty ACCT 404 Class

ACCT 404 prepares future public accountants in assurance work: judging internal control, assessing risk, planning an audit, performing common procedures and reporting, with data analysis tools.

Louwers and colleagues are read two chapters a week alongside lettered modules on specific audit areas. The opening chapters explain why audits exist, the professional standards and the auditor's ethics.

The next chapters turn to audit risk, materiality and planning, then to evidence and the audit of internal control.

The middle of the course covers internal control evaluation and the tests auditors run on controls and on account balances in the major business cycles.

The closing chapters cover completing the audit and the auditor's reports, from the unmodified opinion to qualified, adverse and disclaimer opinions.

Forum threads fall in weeks one, three, five and seven, and the replies in weeks two, four, six and eight.

Connect review questions worth 25 fall every week, the 150-point midterm in week four and the 150-point final in week eight.

ACCT 404 is carried in its forums, since they are the only written work and carry half the grade.

Each opening post answers its chapter's prompt with sourced reasoning, and each follow-up answers a classmate a week later.

The first discussion, for example, can take a family business whose owners no longer run it and show why they need an outside auditor's assurance.

Later threads take up audit risk and materiality, the testing of controls and what an auditor does when a test finds deviations, and the choice between an unmodified and a modified opinion.

Follow-ups push a classmate's argument further rather than agreeing with it.

Connect stays untouched.

You post every thread and reply yourself.

Every post arrives early enough to read before you put it up, with its references formatted.

An opening post on reporting might take a client that refuses to correct a known misstatement and explain, step by step, how the auditor decides between a qualified and an adverse opinion.

Threads reason the way an auditor would, from risk to evidence to conclusion.

Replies add an audit standard.

Forum threads explain what evidence an auditor would gather and why.

An ACCT 404 writer has worked in external audit, usually as a senior or manager at a public accounting firm, often a CPA.

That experience shows in how the threads use the audit risk model, materiality and the evidence hierarchy: as tools an auditor actually applies, not terms to define.

They also know the cases the profession learned from, Enron, WorldCom and more recent failures, and the standards that followed.

Every post gets a second auditor's read.

The auditor writing for you never learns your name.

A short note can clarify a tricky exam topic, like a qualified versus an adverse opinion.

Prompts that draw on the Bible readings are answered with care.

They have also seen how inspections judge audit files, which sharpens the posts' attention to evidence.

Several have worked on both public company audits under PCAOB rules and private company audits under AICPA standards, so they can explain where the two differ.

The weight of the forums is the first surprise. At 125 points each, thread and reply together, every forum is worth nearly as much as an exam.

Audit thinking is the second difficulty. Most students can name the parts of audit risk; fewer can say how a weak inventory count changes the year-end fieldwork.

Sources are the third, two per thread, and the standards themselves are dense reading.

Replies are the fourth, due the week after each thread and easy to forget beside the Connect questions.

The exams are the fifth, 150 points each, in weeks four and eight.

The final week ends on Friday, which shortens the time for the last reply and the final exam.

Reports and opinions in the last chapters trip students who memorize the opinion types without the conditions behind them.

Sampling is a further hurdle, since tests of controls and tests of details use samples for different purposes, and posts that confuse the two lose points with graders who know the difference well.

Audit sampling and materiality are the topics most often misunderstood.

With the first opening post due in week one, an early handover is easiest.

Each thread arrives before its odd week, written to the chapters and the prompt.

Each reply arrives in the following week once classmates' threads are up.

The list shows four threads and four replies; the Connect questions and exams never appear.

A student who joins in week three starts with Forum 2.

Thread lines are larger than reply lines, matching their points.

Many students order all eight posts at once, since together they are half the grade.

Students who would rather write the follow-ups themselves can order only the four opening posts, which carry 300 of the forums' 500 points.