Control objectives vs audit (plan) objectives

They are different things. The audit plan describes the planned risk assessment procedures (per ISA 315) and audit procedures at the assertion level (ISA 330) with the ultimate aim of obtaining sufficient appropriate audit evidence to form an opinion on the financial statements. The audit plan will typically include audit programs for each material audit area and each audit program may be framed around an audit objective – for example, “to obtain reasonable assurance that inventory is not materially misstated”. The program will then set out/reference tests of controls where reliance is to be placed on internal controls and list tests of details to cover all the relevant financial statement assertions (existence, ownership, completeness, cut-off, etc).

A control objective is the purpose of a particular aspect of controls and relates to the risks that controls seek to mitigate. These are management’s responsibility, for example, “to ensure the completeness of recorded sales”. The auditor will test the controls that underlie relevant control objectives only if he seeks to rely on their effective operation – i.e. plans to reduce the level of substantive procedures that would otherwise be necessary.