Audit Partner Vs Engagement Partner

Audit partners are the people who have a financial stake in the accounting firm. They are simply the owner of the accounting firm, some of them just own a part of the firm. When the firm employees are promoted to the partners, they will be able to invest in the company shares. They may have received a portion of the profit from the company. The policy is different from one firm to another.

Audit partners are the top management in the firm. We can say that they are the CEO of the company. They are the full or partial owners of the company.

In a small firm, it may have only one audit partner who is a qualified accountant. While in the big firm, there are many audit partners in charge of the different segments in the firm. However, there must be at least one audit partner in a firm. It is a requirement of the law and related regulations.

The accounting qualification for the audit partner may be different depending on the local law. The qualification can be ACCA, CPA, CFA, and other local qualifications.

Audit Partner Vs Engagement Partner

Engagement partner is the engagement leader who signs off the audit work. In one engagement, there are team members who perform various work during the fieldwork. They have included the associate, senior, team leader, and engagement partner.

The other team members will perform testing based on the audit procedure to gather audit evidence. The engagement partner is the one who makes the final decision based on the collected audit evidence.

The audit partner and engagement partner can be the same person in the firm. The audit partner who leads the firm also has the engagement to perform the work.

The engagement partner can be different from the audit partner in some firms. There are many audit partners in one firm. So they will allocate the engagements to each partner. Different engagements may have different engagement partners. They allocate the work to each partner to balance the workload.