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Governance, Risk, Audit & Privacy · Foundational

Audit Sampling

Applying audit procedures to less than 100 percent of a population to draw conclusions about the whole.

Definition

Sampling can be statistical, using probability theory to quantify sampling risk, or nonstatistical (judgmental). Key parameters include population, sample size, confidence level, tolerable error, and expected error. Samples must be representative of the population.

Example

An auditor selects 40 of 1,200 change tickets at random to test approvals.

Exam tip

Statistical sampling is preferred when the auditor must quantify confidence objectively.

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