CPA Exam Lab
All patterns
Government and compliance

The Government Audit

The Single Audit turns on the one million dollar threshold, and Yellow Book supplements GAAS.

How the exam words it

The playbook

  1. 1A Single Audit is required at 1,000,000 dollars or more of federal awards expended in the year, judged per year, not cumulatively.
  2. 2Yellow Book supplements GAAS and adds its own CPE (80 hours every two years, 24 in government topics) plus separate internal control and compliance reports.
  3. 3A low-risk auditee cuts required major-program coverage from 40 percent to 20 percent, and compliance findings go in the schedule of findings and questioned costs.

The trap

Using an outdated Single Audit threshold. Since the 2024 Uniform Guidance it is 1,000,000 dollars, not 750,000 or 500,000.

How the exam varies it

The same pattern, re-skinned along these axes:

Single Audit trigger, Yellow Book requirement, or a findingStandard versus low-risk auditee coverageFinancial statement audit versus compliance audit

Drill this pattern

8 questions of The Government Audit from across the AUD topics. Clear it by getting 5 right with a streak of 3.

Shows up in 2 AUD topics