This guide provides a detailed overview of key steps to the financial statement risk assessment process, which includes prioritizing financial reporting elements, defining processes, linking processes to financial reporting elements, prioritizing processes and finalizing the risk assessment.

The financial statement risk assessment process outlined in this document prioritizes the financial elements and processes for Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. The prioritization of these items can help an organization define the extent of its process-level documentation and testing efforts. Sample steps include updating the process classification scheme (PCS) and linking footnote disclosures to the updated PCS.