Procedures And Field Work Of Assessment Answer

Steps to analyze business transactions of Walmart:
 The audit in Walmart is undertaken in six steps. The documents related to the organizational activities are important for undertaking the audit process (Khavis & Krishnan, 2017). At the first stage, the documents would be requested. At the next stage, the plan for audit would be prepared. The next stage deals with arrangement of the open meetings. Open meetings help the auditors to get deeper insight of the organizational activities. Conducting the fieldwork is one of the crucial steps of the audit process. The fieldwork is done on basis of the conversations with staffs of the organization. On completion of the fieldwork, using the data collected from open meetings and the fieldwork, the draft report is created. The last step of the audit process deals with arranging a closing meeting with management of the organization. This meeting helps the management to identify the problems within the organization and create an action plan to mitigate the issue.
Plan to utilize audit procedure: 
In case of Walmart, at the first step, the management of the organization is required to provide necessary documents for the auditing. The open meetings with the management will also be arranged to collect information regarding Walmart. After preparing the plan, the fieldwork will be conducted after taking help from the staffs. On basis of all the collected data, the draft audit report would be prepared. After preparation of the audit report, a closing meeting is organized with the Walmart management to discuss regarding the identified issues and making an action plan for mitigating the risks.

Explaining the field work:

Tasks needed for investigation:
The fieldwork deals with collecting information from the departmental employees to get deeper idea on the business processes of Walmart. The fieldwork involves interviews with the staffs of an organization (Lin, 2017). However, the interviews required for audit fieldwork are done in an informal way. The fieldwork needs to be planned well before the investigation. The plan should be made on basis of analyzing the previous audit reports and the financial data. It would help the auditor to identify the areas in the organizational processes which need further investigation. The auditors can schedule the meetings in advance to ensure participation from the all departmental staffs.
Conveying the message through supporting materials:
 The internal audit findings of Walmart point out some crucial information regarding the business, its strengths, weaknesses and potential risks.
Extensive focus on training and development of the organization to grow it rapidly in the retail market: The management of Walmart focuses on training and educating the employees and it increases the growth rate of the organization (S2.q4cdn.com., 2018). In 2016, Walmart reported a growth of 107% in the past four years (S2.q4cdn.com., 2018). The future plan of the organization also indicates that the management is focusing on training the employees to create a unique image in the market.
 The growth rate for Walmart International is yet to increase: The financial data of Walmart indicates that earnings in US accounts for a major part of the revenue (S2.q4cdn.com., 2018). The share of Walmart International also needs to be increased to obtain long term competitive advantage for the organization.

Creating a test for business transactions:

In order to assess the high risk business transactions, the reasonableness test can be performed. The reasonableness test helps the auditors to evaluate the validity of the accounting information. In case of Walmart, the auditor can compare the receivable balance of the organization with the data of past few years to assess reasonability of the balance. The gross margin of the organization can be compared with that of the other businesses to check validity.

Conclusion:

The above discussion indicates that auditing is crucial for businesses for the identification of the risk factors. In case of Walmart, the audit indicates that the organization has to increase it presence in the international market in order to obtain long term growth.

References

Gimbar, C., Hansen, B., & Ozlanski, M. E. (2016). The effects of critical audit matter paragraphs and accounting standard precision on auditor liability. The Accounting Review, 91(6), 1629-1646.
Khavis, J., & Krishnan, J. (2017). Employee Satisfaction in Accounting Firms, Work-Life Balance, Turnover, and Audit Quality.
Lin, D. (2017). Research on the Information Construction of Accounting Audit Based on the Big Data of Computer. International Journal of Information Technology and Web Engineering (IJITWE), 12(3), 74-82.
S2.q4cdn.com. (2018). Annual Report 2016. S2.q4cdn.com. Retrieved 28 February 2018, from https://s2.q4cdn.com/056532643/files/doc_financials/2016/annual/2016-Annual-Report-PDF.pdf
S2.q4cdn.com. (2018). Annual Report 2017. S2.q4cdn.com. Retrieved 28 February 2018, from https://s2.q4cdn.com/056532643/files/doc_financials/2017/Annual/WMT_2017_AR-(1).pdf
S2.q4cdn.com. (2018). Financial Facts. S2.q4cdn.com. Retrieved 28 February 2018, from https://s2.q4cdn.com/056532643/files/doc_financials/2016/annual/WMT-2016-Fact-book.pdf