The effects of familiarity with the preparer and task complexity on the effectiveness of the audit review process

A review of preparers' workpapers can lead to the detection of ''classification'' errors (i.e., incorrect determinations with respect to sampled audit items) and/or ''conclusion'' errors (i.e., incorrect conclusions about populations of audited items). We examined the effects of familiarity with the preparer and task complexity on reviewers' effectiveness at detecting these errors. The results indicate that reviewers of unfamiliar preparers reperform more of the preparers' work but do not detect more classification errors. Preparer familiarity and task complexity interactively determined effectiveness at detecting conclusion errors: when the task was complex, reviewers of familiar preparers detected more conclusion errors than reviewers of unfamiliar preparers. However, performance did not differ on the routine task. Furthermore, reviewers of familiar preparers were more effective on the complex relative to routine task, but the reverse result was true for reviewers of unfamiliar preparers.