What Is Audit Sampling?

International standard of accounting deals with audit sampling. In general parlance it is known as test check. Audit sampling is the application of a compliance or substantive procedure to less than 100 percent of the items within an account balance or class of transactions to enable the auditor to obtain and evaluate evidence of some characteristics of balance or class and to form or assist in forming a conclusion concerning that characteristic.


It is important to recognize that certain testing procedures do not come within the definition of sampling. Test performed on 100 percent of items within a population do not involve sampling. Likewise the techniques of selecting all items within a population which have a particular significance does not qualify as sampling with respect to the portion of the population examined nor with respect to the population as a whole. Since the items were not selected from the total population on a basis that we expected to be representative. Such items might imply some characteristics of the remaining portion of the population but would not be the basis for a valid conclusion about the remaining portion of the population. This standard applies equally to both statistical and non statistical sampling methods.