Other than a financial statement audit, what are two other assurance services? How do these assurance services differ from a financial statement audit?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Services like Consumer Reports, Carfax, and Angie's List are all examples of Assurance Services. Assurance services are defined as independent profession services that improve the quality of information, or its context for decision makers. Consumer Reports sells to consumers information about products and services based on Consumer Reports' scientific testing. Carfax generates reports on used vehicles' maintenance history and vehicle damage history for used car purchasers. Angie's List provides user reviews of home project service providers. The user reviews are verified by Angie's List.  All of these assurance services differ from an Audit in that Auditing Standards require auditors to issue an audit report. The Assurance Services listed provide reports, but there is no government or regulatory body that requires them to do so. Also auditing is defined as a systematic process of objectively obtaining and evaluating evidence regarding assertions about economic actions and events (i.e., financial statements) to ascertain the degree of correspondence between those assertions and established criteria (e.g., US GAAP) and communicating the results (i.e., audit report). These items are different than the more general definition of an assurance service.