For the purposes of this GS the following items have the meanings attributed below:

Audit – means an assurance engagement and may include:

i. an audit or review of a financial report in accordance with the Act;

ii. an audit or review of a financial report, or complete set of financial statements, for any other purpose;

iii. an audit or review of other historical financial information;

iv. an audit or review of information in a sustainability report in accordance with the Act, or for any other purpose; and

v. other audit or assurance engagements.

Auditor – means an individual auditor, audit firm or audit company.^[1] Unless specified, auditor refers to an external auditor conducting an assurance engagement as described in subparagraphs 1(a) to 1(e).

Audit file – is a file that contains one or more folders or other storage media, in physical or electronic form, containing the records that comprise the documentation (audit working papers) for a specific assurance engagement as defined in 7(d) below, and those other documents that are excluded for the purposes of allowing access, see paragraph 8.

Audit working papers – (herein referred to as audit working papers in this GS) contained within an audit file may include:

i. documents or any other records of information, produced or acquired by an auditor (whether from the client or third parties) during an engagement that are used, or developed, to undertake the engagement and fulfil the auditor's responsibilities under that engagement.

ii. copies of documents, records or schedules produced by the client and utilised by the auditor to undertake an engagement;

iii. internal documents and records created or developed by the auditor to perform or support any audit or audit-based procedures undertaken or conclusion derived from these documents, such as memorandums, external correspondence with the client or third parties, and final reports;

iv. audit work programs (other than those considered proprietary by the audit firm);

v. review or other assurance working papers; and

vi. for an internal audit engagement – the internal audit working papers.

Component auditor – includes an auditor who performs audit work related to a component for purposes of the group audit or an auditor who performs audit work related to a component for purposes of the group sustainability engagement. A component auditor is part of the engagement team for a group audit or a group sustainability engagement.

Group financial report – a financial report that includes the financial information of more than one entity or business unit through a consolidation process. For purpose of this GS, a consolidation process includes:

i. Consolidation, proportionate consolidation, or an equity method of accounting;

ii. The presentation in a combined financial report of the financial information of entities or business units that have no parent but are under common control or common management; or

iii. The aggregation of the financial information of entities or business units such as branches or divisions.^[2]

Group audit – includes an engagement for the audit or review of a group financial report and engagement for assurance on group sustainability information.

Group auditor – the group auditor of the group financial report or the group sustainability information.

Group sustainability report – a sustainability report that includes the sustainability information of more than one entity or business unit.

Internal audit function – a function of an entity that performs assurance and consulting activities designed to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of the entity’s governance, risk management and internal control processes.

Internal auditors – those individuals who perform the activities of the internal audit function. Internal auditors may belong to an internal audit department or equivalent function, outsourcing entity or co-sourced from both internal and out-sourced resources.

Internal audit provider – a third party auditor contracted to provide internal audit services to an entity.

Regulators – may include the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) or the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).

For the purposes of this GS, the following documents and information which are ordinarily contained in an audit file, may not form part of the auditor’s audit working papers defined in paragraph 7(d) that are normally provided to another party when access is requested:

a. The auditor’s internal budgeting documents concerning costing or billing records for the audit client;

b. Internal staffing-related documents for the engagement and any incidental personnel records or information about the engagement team;

c. Documents or information that are subject to legal professional privilege;

d. Information subject to other legislative requirements, for example, those governing privacy; and

e. Proprietary work programs (e.g. client acceptance checklists and internal firm independence review checklists).

The information contained in audit working papers can be in any form, including handwritten data, text, image or audio, and may be stored electronically or in hard copy.

For the purposes of this GS, documents or information included in the audit file may be subject to “legal professional privilege” because an audit client, or relevant laws or regulations, at the time it was originally provided, required that such information or audit working paper be legally privileged. An example is legal advice regarding litigation against the audit client, as provided by its legal counsel. Paragraphs 27-30 of this GS contain further discussion related to legal professional privilege.