This paper exatiimes the probability judgments made by auditors for their tinancial statement lootnote disclosure decisions and their audit report additional paragraph decisions m the presence of material loss contingencies. In the United States these judgments are governed by SFAS No, S and SAS No, 58, Two prior studies ha\e reponed niconsistenl results pertaining lo the degree of compliance of auditors with the judgment and decision-making process implied by SR^S No ,'. In contrasi, S.^S No. 58 has not previously been e.xaniined with respect to auditor compliance. Results from an experimettl uith 64 audit partners from six tirms were consistent with the hypoihesis that audit partners employ the same (compensatory) judgment process when making footnote disclosure decisions as when tnaking additional paragraph decisions. This process led the partners to make judgments for the additional paragraph decision that were in accordance with S,'\S No, .'is. In contrast, their judgments for the lootnote disclosure decision were consistent with a decision theory tnodel of auditor behavior rather than the noncompensatory process intplied hy SFAS No, S, ,'\dditional aspects of the study penain to the additional paragraph decision oi auditors. Observed judgments tor these decisions are consistent uith the hypothesis that additional information is conveyed bevond that provided by only a lootnote disclosure. This is contrary to some recenl discussions of the standards.* The helpful comments of Ramji Balakrishnan; ,lere Francis; Bill Scott, the editor, tvio anonymous reviewers; and participants of the .Accounting Workshop at the tini\ersit> *:\i Iowa are gratefully acknowledged.Contemporary .Accounting Research Vol. 7 No, 2 pp. 544-564 SAS n" 58. Par opposition, leurs jugements relatifs a la presentation sous toime de notes infrapaginales etaient conformes a un modele de comportement du verificateur inspire dc la iheorie de la decision plutol qu'au processus non compensatoire que suppose le SFAS n" .5. D'autres aspects de l'etude portent sur la decision des verificafeurs relative a i'ajoui de paragraphed supplementaires. Les jugements observes re)ativemenl a cette decision sont conlormes ii i'hypothese selon laquelle d'autres renseignetnents som transmis, outre ceux qui sont fournis par voie de simples noies infrapaginaies. Ces re.sultats viennent contredire cerfaities analyses recentes portam sur les normes.

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Abstract, Although auditors often determine an upper bound on the amount of error in individual accounts, their primary concem is with the overall amount of error over several accounts. This paper presents a combined bound procedure for determining such an overall upper bound when using the moment method of monetary unit sampling (MUS). A procedure is also presented for determining optimal sample sizes over several independent accounts. The new combined bound procedure provides the moment method of MUS with the same type of flexibility that is currently available for the Stringer method of MUS. In addition, the new sample size planning procedure provides the combined moment bound with added flexibility and options that are not available when using a combined Stringer bound approach. The effectiveness and efficiency of both procedures has been investigated using 4324 separate simulation studies. The results indicate that the combined upper confidence bounds of the moment method are significantly smaller than those provided by the most attractive Stringer-based combined bound method. Further, the sample size planning procedure can be an effective audit tool.Resume. Bien que les verificateurs fixent souvent la limite superieure du taux d'erreur acceptable pour des comptes particuliers, leur preoccupation premiere touche le taux global d'erreur pour un ensemble de comptes. L'auteur propose un procede permettant d'etablir une limite combinee visant la determination de cette forme de limite superieure globale grace a l'utilisation de la methode des moments appliquee a l'echantillonnage en unites monetaires. II propose egalement un procede visant la determination d'echantillons de taille optimale pour un ensemble de comptes independants. Le nouveau procede de limite combinee fait appel a la methode des moments d'echantillonnage en unites monetaires avec le meme type de souplesse que Ton peut actuellement obtenir en utili sant la methode de Stringer. De plus, le nouveau procede de planification de la taille de l'echantillon livre une limite combinee resultant de l'application de la methode des moments en meme temps qu'il offre une souplesse plus grande et des possibilites que n'offre pas la methode de Stringer. L'efficacite et l'efficience des deux procedes sont analysees a l'aide de 4324 etudes de simulation distinctes. Les resultats indiquent que les limites de confiance superieures combinees obtenues par la methode des moments sont