Audit & Assurance
When someone needs a specific set of facts checked — not an opinion on everything — an agreed-upon procedures engagement is the precise, less expensive tool.
Goldenthal & Suss Consulting P.C. performs agreed-upon procedures (AUP) engagements for businesses, nonprofits, and government entities. In an AUP engagement the CPA performs specific procedures that the engaging party has agreed are appropriate — for example, recalculating royalties, testing grant expenditures, or verifying a covenant calculation — and reports the findings. Unlike an audit, an AUP engagement does not result in an opinion or conclusion; it reports exactly what was done and what was found, under AICPA attestation standards (AT-C 215).
AUP engagements are built for narrow questions. A franchisor wants gross sales verified before calculating royalties. A funder wants a sample of grant expenditures traced to invoices and approvals. A lender wants a borrowing-base or covenant calculation recomputed. A buyer wants specific balances checked before closing. A government agency requires procedures on a particular program or report.
In each case, a full audit would answer a much broader question than anyone is asking, at far greater cost. The AUP answers the actual one.
The value of an AUP is entirely in the procedures, so we spend the time up front agreeing them precisely: what population, what sample, what threshold counts as an exception, and what source documents are acceptable. Vague procedures such as "review for reasonableness" are not permitted, because they invite judgment that the report cannot convey.
The resulting report lists each procedure and its findings plainly, so that its readers can draw their own conclusions.
An audit results in an opinion on whether financial statements as a whole are fairly presented. An agreed-upon procedures engagement results in a report of specific procedures and their findings, with no opinion or conclusion. AUPs are narrower, faster, and usually far less expensive — the right choice when someone needs particular facts checked rather than assurance on everything.
The engaging party — the business, organization, or agency that hires the CPA — agrees to the procedures and acknowledges they are appropriate for its purpose. The CPA helps design them and is responsible for performing them as described, but does not decide whether they are sufficient for the reader's needs.
Under current AICPA standards an AUP report can be issued for general use, though the CPA may restrict its use when appropriate — for example, when the procedures are only meaningful to parties who understand why they were chosen. The intended users should be agreed when the engagement is set up.
Sources & review
AICPA AT-C 215 as revised by SSAE 19 (effective for reports dated on/after 2021-07-15). Reviewed 2026-10-01. Thresholds and deadlines change — confirm current requirements before relying on them.
Tell us about your organization and the deadline you are working toward. We will tell you what the engagement involves and what it costs.
Request a ProposalStaten Island, NY · Freehold, NJ
(718) 227-6035
