Essay Sample on The Wells Fargo Project

Introduction

Working on large team projects such as the Wells Fargo audit project is quite a challenging encounter, but provides an opportunity for team members to gauge their competency on teamwork and collaboration. Moreover, such projects provide unique learning experiences essential for the success of subsequent projects. Several things went right during the Wells Fargo Project although there were a few shortcomings that the team had to deal with to keep the project on course. These situations were critical learning points for future teams. On this note, this paper evaluates the team experience during the Wells Fargo audit project and provides a user guide on how best future teams can optimize their success.

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Evaluation

It was an inspiring moment to work with the team. It was amazing how the team managed to solve complex tasks during the project. Team members brainstormed whenever a problem presented itself, and it was fascinating to see everyone contributing to a pool of ideas that helped to overcome these challenges. The team worked together to find the best approaches and solutions to the auditing tasks. The diversity in the team served as an overwhelming source of new ideas that were critical to the success of the project. Members supported each other to ensure that all the tasks were completed within the schedule. It was a common understanding that every member had something unique to offer to the team. On this regard, every offer of an idea from a member was valued. Ideally, the team portrayed the attributes of ideal teamwork.

The User Guide

The user guide herein provided seeks to help future teams attain maximum success on their audit projects. The guide has been developed based on the experience gained during the team project. Particularly, the guide puts great emphasis on factors perceived to be the most essential in the success of an audit project. These include improved teamwork and collaboration, adherence to professional audit standards, efficient sampling techniques, sufficient audit evidence, and risk management.

Improving Teamwork and Collaboration

It is apparent from the Wells Fargo Project that collaboration is vital for the success of a team. Team members collaborated effectively to deliver the team objectives and goals. Thus, all future teams must strive to maintain enhanced team collaboration. There are two primary ways through which future teams will foster teamwork and collaboration. First, they will have to encourage open communication. Communication helps to build good working relationships among team members thereby offering a platform for collaboration (Harrasi & Naeema, 2014). Second, future audit teams should focus on building trust among members to attain higher performance. As Isik and Aliyev (2015) explain, trust has a pivotal role in teamwork and collaboration and affects the overall performance of a team. In the same manner, subsequent audit teams will attain high levels of collaboration and team performances if members maintain trust with each other.

Adherence to Professional Audit Standards

The success of the Wells Fargo audit project is attributed greatly to strict adherence to auditing standards. Just as the Wells Fargo audit team, subsequent audit teams will have to observe the applicable auditing standards and guidelines for a successful audit process. Specifically, future teams will have to be keen on fieldwork and reporting standards from the Generally Acceptable Accounting Standards (GAAS). GAAS fieldwork standards for auditing require that an auditing project is planned adequately based on sufficient understanding of the company internal control (Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, 2019). Still on the fieldwork standards, GAAS provides that appropriate evidential matter is only obtainable through observations, inspection, and inquiries. Future audit teams will have to plan their activities in line with the GAAS provisions. Additionally, they will have to adhere to GAAS reporting standards to enhance their success.

Efficient Sampling Techniques

The Wells Fargo Project revealed that sampling was the most critical part of the entire auditing project because it has a direct impact on the data accuracy and reliability of results. Therefore, a successful audit team should always use proper sampling techniques particularly appropriate sampling size and method. Audit sampling is useful in an audit practice because it helps an auditor to analyze transactions and account balances that in his or her knowledge are not part of those with misstatements (Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, 2019). Future audit teams will be at liberty to use either statistical or non-statistical sampling or both. Most importantly, the teams will have to ensure that the sampling method chosen is appropriately utilized. As for statistical sampling, the sample size will depend on the statistical design that has been adopted for the project. A decision to use a non-statistical sampling should be arrived at after ascertaining that it will avail the most accurate evidential matter.

Sufficiency of Audit Evidence

Auditing is a critical process to an entity implying that the conclusions drawn from the process must have sufficient material evidence. All future audit teams must look forward to availing compelling evidence to support their conclusions on whether or not the audient accounts are free from misstatement. A piece of information is regarded as audit evidence if it supports and corroborates the general assertions on a company's internal control or financial statement (Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, 2019). Teams will have to consider the level of risk in the material misstatement and the quality of evidence extracted to establish the level of evidence sufficiency. Accounts with a high risk of material misstatement will require comparatively more evidence because more evidence is required when the risk is high (Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, 2019). It is also advisable for a team to use quality evidence since the need for additional evidence decreases when high-quality evidence is used.

Risk Management

The auditing process is prone to some risks that might compromise the accuracy of the overall assertion. It will be a worthwhile move for subsequent audit teams to prepare adequately to mitigate such risks. A team should always consider the possible audit risks right from the planning stage. As Feizizadeh (2012) holds, effective audit function assesses the accounting risks in an organization and builds the audit plan based on the identified risks Such a move enables an auditor to limit the identified risk to low levels. Sampling is another source of risk for the audit process with the most probable risks being incorrect acceptance and incorrect rejection. These two risks always lead to erroneous conclusions compromising the overall success of the project. Adoption of proper sampling techniques is the key to minimizing the sampling risks.

Conclusion

The Wells Fargo Project availed an opportunity to work with an inspiring team. The team demonstrated high competency in teamwork and collaboration. The Wells Fargo project succeeded in its mission suggesting that not much could be done differently. Nevertheless, various conclusions have been drawn from the experience to develop a practical guide to future or subsequent audit teams. The guide serves to help future teams be successful by improving their teamwork and collaboration, conforming to professional auditing standards, using efficient sampling techniques and sufficient audit evidence, and managing risks effectively.

References

Feizizadeh, A. (2012). Strengthening internal audit effectiveness. Indian Journal of Science and Technology, 5(5), 2777-2778.

Harrasi, N. A., & Naeema, H. J. (2014). Factors contributing to successful collaboration among Omani academic libraries. Interlending & Document Supply, 42(1), 26-32.

Isik, M., & Aliyev, Y. (2015). The Relationship between Teamwork and Organizational Trust. International Journal of Research in Business and Social Science, 4(1), 133-149.

Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. (2019). Auditing Standards: Generally Accepted Auditing Standards. Retrieved February 16, 2019, from https://pcaobus.org/Standards/Auditing/Pages/default.aspx