Ad hoc internship in audit engagements

THE Auditing and Assurance Standards Council has issued Philippine Auditing Practice Note (PAPN) 001, Series of 2021, Guidance on the Tasks and Activities of Student Interns in an Audit Engagement. This aims to guide host audit firms/practitioners, students and other parties concerned as to which tasks may be assigned to student interns in their on-the job-trainings (OJT). Through the years and across academic institutions and partner organizations in government and business, many individual initiatives have been done to improve the OJT of student-interns. However, no specific guidelines as to the bounds and scope of the tasks that may be assigned to student-interns were identified.

This PAPN specifies what duties may be assigned to student-interns for optimal experiential learning without compromising audit quality, ethics, confidentiality and compliance to professional standards, laws and regulation, among others. Student-interns as referred to in this PAPN refer to those who are taking up Bachelor of Science (BS) in Accountancy, BS in Internal Auditing, BS in Management and BS in Information System. To adjust with the times, it also included some considerations on the digital and virtual performance of internship activities.