| Definition: | A comparison of financial statement amounts with the auditor's expectation. An example is the comparison of 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 the working papers.
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