Generally Accepted Auditing Standards - GAAS

An audit represents a double-check of a set of financial statements. One set of accountants puts together a company’s books. Another group looks them over to make sure the first team did a good job.

The Generally Accepted Auditing Standards, or GAAS, provide the guidelines on how audits should get conducted. The obvious corollary is with the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, or GAAP, the fundamental rules about how financial statements should be created in the first place.

GAAS protocols are produced by American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) through its Auditing Standards Board (ASB).