Tracing

Tracing may refer to:

• Tracing (law), a process by which a one demonstrates the ownership of property, with the intent to be awarded a claim based on this information
• Tracing (criminology), a subject concerning setting up traces of occurrence of objects generated from trace evidence left at crime scenes
• Tracing (as with a gun or camera), tracking an object, as with the use of tracer ammunition
• Tracing in art, copying an object or drawing, especially with the use of translucent tracing paper
• Tracing (computer graphics), edge detection via algorithms used in digital image processing to automatically generate tracings of objects
• Tracing (software), a method of debugging in computer programming
• Call tracing, a procedure in telephony that permits an entitled user to be informed about the routing of data for an established connection
• Dye tracing, tracking various flows using dye added to the liquid in question
• Anterograde tracing and Retrograde tracing, biological research techniques used to map the connections of neurons from source to termination and from termination to source, respectively

In logistics

• Tracking and tracing, a process of monitoring the location and status of property in transit

Tracing

During an audit, you need to test management financial statement assertions for fixed and intangible asset transactions. There are six assertions that you must attend to when auditing. Of the six assertions the completeness of recorded assets relies on the audit technique of tracing to illustrate a verifiable completeness of recorded assets. Completeness evaluates the management assertion opposite to occurrence. This means all the fixed and intangible assets of your client owns show up on the balance sheet and none are missing. Difference between Tracing and Vouching

Tracing - Forward (from Source Document to Records) - "Completeness Assertion"

Vouching - Backward (from Records to Source Document) - “Existence Assertion"

Importance between Tracing and Vouching When designing detailed audit tests a distinction should be made between "tracing" and "vouching" for two important reasons: Tracing (going from the Source Document) is an example of a completeness test; vouching is an example of Existence of Assets. Tracing detects inappropriate exclusion; vouching may not. Therefore, for example, when looking for fraud tracing and not vouching tests are necessary.

Establishing Completeness When the auditors are testing the completeness of assets, they are looking for assets that have been acquired but not recorded in the accounting records. Therefore, analyzing recorded entries in the asset accounts will not be effective for this purpose; the auditors must take a different approach. Many tests for unrecorded assets involve tracing from the “Source Documents” created when the assets were acquired to entries in the accounting records. To test for unrecorded accounts receivable, for example, the auditors might select a sample of shipping documents related to sales made during the year and determine that accounts receivable were properly recorded.