Explorer

The firm did not identify and appropriately address a departure from GAAP related to the issuer's omission of certain required disclosures for short-term investments under FASB ASC Topic 820 Fair Value Measurement related to (1) the categorization of these investments within the fair value hierarchy and (2) a description of the valuation techniques and the inputs used in the fair value measurements. (AS 2502.43)

The firm's substantive procedures to test the valuation of investment securities consisted of agreeing investments to brokerage statements. The firm did not perform any procedures to evaluate the relevance and reliability of the values included in the brokerage statements. (AS 1105.04 and .06; AS 2502.26 and .28)

The issuer reported the valuation of certain investments based on investee financial results including unaudited financial statements. The firm did not apply or request that the investor arrange with the investee to have another auditor apply appropriate auditing procedures to the unaudited financial statements for these investees. (AS 1105.63)

The firm did not perform sufficient procedures to test the valuation of certain investment securities because it limited its selections to the population selected by the issuer's management and did not perform any procedures to test the valuation of the remaining population of investment securities. (AS 1105.27; AS 2301.08)

The issuer recorded certain investment securities at fair value based on cash-flow models. The following deficiencies were identified: · The firm did not perform any substantive procedures to test the fair value of these investment securities as of the issuer's year end. (AS 2501.07)

The issuer recorded certain investment securities at fair value based on cash-flow models. The following deficiencies were identified: · The firm did not perform any substantive procedures to test certain required disclosures the issuer made under FASB ASC Topic 820 Fair Value Measurement. (AS 2301.08; AS 2501.07)

The issuer recorded certain investment securities at fair value based on cash-flow models. The following deficiencies were identified: · The firm did not identify and test any controls over these cash-flow models including the data and assumptions the issuer used in these cash-flow models. (AS 2201.39)

The issuer reported investment securities that were held within various investment funds managed by external parties. The following deficiency was identified: • The firm did not perform substantive procedures to test the valuation of these investments beyond (1) comparing their reported fair values to the statements obtained from the external parties that managed the respective investment funds and (2) for a selection of investment funds testing the fair values of certain underlying investments while excluding others from testing. (AS 2501.07)

The issuer recorded the fair value of its available-for-sale securities based on prices it obtained from external pricing services. The firm selected for testing a quarterly control over the valuation of these securities that included the issuer's comparison of its recorded prices to prices obtained from another external pricing service and the investigation of securities with price variances that exceeded both a monetary and a percentage change threshold. The following deficiencies were identified: · The firm did not evaluate whether the monetary threshold the issuer used to identify securities for investigation was sufficiently precise to detect material misstatements. (AS 2201.42)

The issuer recorded the fair value of its available-for-sale securities based on prices it obtained from external pricing services. The firm selected for testing a quarterly control over the valuation of these securities that included the issuer's comparison of its recorded prices to prices obtained from another external pricing service and the investigation of securities with price variances that exceeded both a monetary and a percentage change threshold. The following deficiencies were identified: · In testing the operating effectiveness of this control for the fourth quarter the firm did not identify that the comparison spreadsheet that the issuer used in this quarter contained a formulaic error such that the issuer did not properly calculate the price variances for any of its securities. (AS 2201.44)

The issuer recorded the fair value of its available-for-sale securities based on prices it obtained from external pricing services. The firm selected for testing a quarterly control over the valuation of these securities that included the issuer's comparison of its recorded prices to prices obtained from another external pricing service and the investigation of securities with price variances that exceeded both a monetary and a percentage change threshold. The following deficiencies were identified: · For securities for which a comparative price was unavailable the control owner performed procedures that consisted of comparing the recorded price of these securities to their respective historical prices and investigating securities with price variances that exceeded a monetary threshold. In testing the design of this control the firm did not evaluate whether historical prices were an appropriate basis to allow the issuer to assess the reasonableness of the recorded fair values for these securities. (AS 2201.42)

The issuer recorded the fair value of its available-for-sale securities based on prices it obtained from an external pricing service (primary pricing service). The firm selected for testing a control over the valuation of these securities that consisted of the issuer's comparison of its recorded prices to prices obtained from another external pricing service and the issuer's investigation of (1) price variances that exceeded certain thresholds or (2) securities for which prices were not provided by the primary pricing service. The issuer manually entered the securities and prices obtained from both pricing services into a spreadsheet for this comparison. The following deficiencies were identified: · The firm did not test an aspect of this control that addressed whether the prices from the primary pricing service were accurately entered into the comparison spreadsheet. (AS 2201.42 and .44)

The firm did not perform any substantive procedures to test the valuation of these investment securities. (AS 2501.07)

The firm did not identify and test any controls over the issuer's (1) classification of certain investment securities and (2) evaluation of whether certain other investment securities were impaired. (AS 2201.39)

The issuer recorded certain investment securities at fair value based on cash-flow models and classified these securities as held-to-maturity (HTM). The following deficiencies were identified: · The firm did not perform any substantive procedures to test the valuation of these securities. (AS 2501.07)

The issuer recorded certain investment securities at fair value based on cash-flow models and classified these securities as held-to-maturity (HTM). The following deficiencies were identified: · The firm did not identify and test any controls that addressed whether the issuer's classification of these securities as HTM was appropriate. (AS 2201.39)

The issuer recorded certain investment securities at fair value based on cash-flow models and classified these securities as held-to-maturity (HTM). The following deficiencies were identified: · The firm did not perform any substantive procedures to evaluate whether the issuer's classification of these securities as HTM was appropriate. (AS 2301.08)

The firm did not perform any substantive procedures to test the valuation of investments. (AS 2502.15)

The firm did not perform substantive procedures to test the valuation of certain investment securities held within various investment funds beyond comparing their net asset value to the trustee statements. (AS 2501.07)

The issuer held a portfolio of investments which were carried at fair value. The following deficiencies were identified: · The firm did not identify and test any controls over the valuation of certain other investments. (AS 2201.39)

The issuer utilized a service organization to process its securities transactions. The issuer used an impairment analysis prepared by the service organization to determine whether certain investment securities had credit related impairments. The firm did not perform procedures to test the accuracy of credit ratings used by the service organization in developing the issuer's impairment analysis for these investment securities. (AS 2301.08)

The issuer held a portfolio of investment securities which were carried at fair value. The issuer recorded the fair value of certain investment securities based on prices it obtained from external pricing agencies. The following deficiencies were identified: - The firm did not identify and test any controls over the reasonableness of the prices obtained from external pricing agencies used by the issuer to determine the valuation of certain investment securities. (AS 2201.39)

The firm's internal inspection program inspected this audit and reviewed these areas but did not identify the deficiencies below. The firm did not perform substantive procedures to test the valuation of certain investment securities held within various investment funds beyond comparing their net asset value to pricing information obtained from the respective investment fund's website. (AS 2501.07)

The firm's internal inspection program inspected this audit and reviewed this area but did not identify the deficiencies below. The firm did not perform substantive procedures to test the valuation of certain other types of investment securities held within various investment funds beyond (1) for certain securities comparing their net asset value to pricing information obtained from the respective investment fund's website and (2) for other securities comparing their fair value or net asset value to the trustee or custodian statements. (AS 2501.07)

The firm's internal inspection program inspected this audit and reviewed this area but did not identify the deficiency below. The firm did not perform substantive procedures to test the valuation of certain investment securities held within various investment funds beyond comparing their fair value or net asset value to the trustee statements. (AS 2501.07)

The firm's internal inspection program inspected this audit and reviewed this area but did not identify the deficiency below. The firm did not perform substantive procedures to test the valuation of certain investment securities held within various investment funds beyond comparing their net asset value to pricing information obtained from the respective investment fund's website. (AS 2501.07)

The firm did not perform procedures to test or identify and test controls over the accuracy of certain data used to determine the valuation of certain investment securities beyond testing the accuracy of the data in the prior year. (AS 1105.10)

The firm did not perform any substantive procedures to test the valuation of certain investment securities including some accounted for at fair value. (AS 2301.08; AS 2501.07)