Sales Revenue and Commissions

Every audit firm has to pay particular attention to the audit of sales. The relevant auditing standard already explicitly mentions that revenues are particularly subject to the risk of fraud. In this respect, we show in detail under which conditions Wirecard should have recognized gross revenues and that commissions were predominantly to be shown in the income statement in the acquirer business. We conclude this analysis with the necessary audit procedures to clarify which paragraphs of the relevant auditing standards were violated. Without disregarding the legal requirements of the relevant auditing standards, it would have been revealed that numerous transactions did not exist at all—the fraud would have been discovered.