Confuision of verb used in TOC and Substantive procedures

An audit procedure is any audit test that auditors carry out during the audit. There are two main types:

1 Tests of control
2 Substantive tests.

If using tests of control, you have to be testing the operation of a control. So if the auditor traces from purchase invoices to the payables ledger then to the cash book payments that is NOT a test of control. If the auditor were to test that someone on the company’s staff checked that all invoices were credited to the payables ledger, then that is a test of control because the auditor is ensuring that the employees was carrying out the control specified.

Substantive tests are of two types: analytical procedures (ratios and comparisons) and tests of detail, essentially the auditor reperforming of tracing transactions. So the example above of the auditors themselves tracing from invoice to payables ledger to cash book is a test of detail because the auditor is testing the detail and accuracy of the transaction, not testing any sort of control over it.