SAS 99 Consideration of Fraud in Financial Statement Audit is a standard introduced to help auditors tackle fraud through new audit techniques, improved skills, and increased professional skepticism. Though the title of this standard is same as SAS 82, SAS 99 is more broad in scope and requires detailed procedures to be completed by the auditor. One should not forget that it is management's responsibility to design and implement programs and controls to prevent and detect fraud. The auditor's responsibility towards fraud can be summed up as

"a responsibility to plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements are free of material misstatement, whether caused by error or fraud."

Let us take a look at the main principles which SAS 99 stresses on.

1. SAS 99 lays stress on professional skepticism.

2. SAS 99 requires a brainstorming session among the audit team members to discuss the potential for material misstatement due to fraud.

3. SAS 99 emphasizes on inquiry as an audit procedure along with a consideration of other information, such as client acceptance and continuance procedures, during the information-gathering phase.

4. SAS 99 calls for a thorough risk assessment based on which test plans and strategies should be conducted. This would again call for increased analytical procedures to gather information used to identify risks of a material misstatement due to fraud.

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