audit working papers Files built up during an audit that contain detailed evidence and information gathered during the audit. Typical contents include information of continuing importance (e.g. the organizational plan of a company), planning information, assessment of the client's accounting and internal control ...

Working papers are the connecting link between the client's records and the audited accounts. These include all the evidence gathered by auditor indicating what work has been done by him and the procedure he has followed in verifying a particular asset or a liability. These provide permanent historical record logically arranged in order in which each item appears to in the balance sheet . These also serve as a great guide to the staff to whom the work of audit has been assigned after the previous year audit. These would come to the help of the auditor in future in case the client files a suit against the auditor's negligence.

The question of lien in regard to the working papers arose in the case of sockockinsky VS Bright Grahme in England. The vital question involved in this case was whether the auditors had a right to retain the working papers as if it were their own property even after the payment of the audit fee. The learned court gave the judgment in favor of the auditors on the ground that they were independent contractors and not as agents of the clients. However the right of the auditor to retain the working papers must be distinguished from the right of the auditor to retain the books of accounts