Highlights

Auditing estimates and judgements has become the highest-risk area in practice monitoring, regulatory inspections, and enforcement actions. With the 2026/27 audit super-cycle approaching, auditors must be equipped with a fraud-focused, scepticism-driven methodology that integrates HKSA 315, HKSA 540, and HKSA 240 as a single coordinated shield — not isolated checklists.

“Fraud, risk assessment, and estimate auditing are structurally interconnected… These standards must be audited as a single, coordinated shield.”

This webinar provides a practical framework for SMPs, engagement partners, EQCR reviewers, and financial reporting teams to strengthen audit quality in the most subjective and judgement-heavy areas.

Key Topics Covered

1. The Integrated Standards Framework

How HKSA 315, HKSA 540 (Revised), and HKSA 240 (Revised) operate together — and why treating them separately leads to audit failure.

2. The Paradigm Shift: From Passive Watchdog to Active Guard Dog

Why professional skepticism is non-scalable, and how auditors must document challenge on every file.

3. High-Risk Subjective Areas

Deep-dive diagnostic frameworks for:

   - Goodwill & intangible asset impairment

   - Expected credit losses (ECL)

   - Provisions & onerous contracts

   - Level 3 fair value measurements

   - Long-term contract accounting & WIP

   - Non-underlying items and alternative performance measures

4. Fraud Lens Integration (HKSA 240 Revised)

Mandatory retrospective reviews, bias evaluation, forensic interviewing, document authenticity checks, and strategic unpredictability.

“Every audit must be approached as if you have never met the client before… prior-period trust is now irrelevant.”

5. Regulator Findings & Common Deficiencies

The top recurring inspection failures — including hollow signatures, superficial verification, unchallenged WACC rates, and “Ask & File” auditing.

6. Airtight Documentation & Quality Gates

How to produce evidence-based working papers using the Five-Step Memo Structure and the Track Q-100 Management Challenge Log.

“If it is not written down, it did not happen… Inspectors scan files specifically for written proof of ‘thought friction’.”

 

Who Should Attend

   - SMP auditors

   - Engagement partners

   - EQCR reviewers

   - Financial reporting teams

   - Audit managers preparing for 2026/27 inspection cycles

   - Anyone responsible for high-judgement audit areas

Speaker(s)

Mr. KC Cheng FCA, Master for Professional Accounting, Master of Arts, English for Profession

KC Cheng is a Chartered Accountant with extensive experience in auditing, accounting, and corporate finance, having served as a technical and audit partner at Deloitte and co‑headed its corporate finance division. He has overseen audits of major listed companies, acted as reporting accountant in IPOs, and advised on complex issues such as listing rules, disclosures, and Hong Kong’s Codes on Takeovers, Mergers, and Share Buy‑backs. These roles required him to form clear, defensible professional opinions on intricate transactions — skills directly transferable to expert witness testimony, where clarity, independence, and technical authority are paramount.

Beyond auditing, KC’s career spans senior leadership in a listed manufacturing group and his own advisory practice since 2009, specializing in Pre‑IPO work, tax investigations, mergers and acquisitions, and corporate restructuring. He has also managed intellectual property disputes, crisis events, and cross‑border China business matters, giving him first‑hand exposure to contentious and complex corporate issues. Combined with his dual Master’s degrees in Professional Accounting and English for the Professions, he is uniquely equipped to interpret both figures and documents, and to communicate expert opinions persuasively in legal, regulatory, or arbitration settings.