ANALYTICAL PROCEDURE Definition

ANALYTICAL PROCEDURE is a comparison of financial statement amounts with an auditor's expectation. An example is to compare actual interest expense for the year (a financial statement amount) with an estimate of what that interest expense should be. The estimate can be found by multiplying a reasonable interest rate times the average balance of interest bearing debt outstanding during the year (the auditor's expectation). If actual interest expense differs significantly from the expectation, the auditor explains the difference in audit documentation.

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BOND COVENANT are agreements within a bond that can either be negative or positive in the view of the bondholder, e.g., a negative bond covenant is a bond covenant that prevents certain activities unless agreed to by the bondholders.

BUSINESS PUBLICATIONS AUDIT (BPA) is similar to the Audit Bureau of Circulation; the BPA is a third-party organization that verifies the circulation of print media through periodic audits.

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