Other information
153
Ahold at a glance
Business review
Governance
Financials
Ahold
Annual Report 2015
Our audit approach
Overview and context
We designed our audit by determining materiality and assessing the risks of material misstatement in the financial statements. In particular, we looked at where the management board made subjective judgements, for example
in respect of significant accounting estimates that involved making assumptions and considering future events that are inherently uncertain. As in all of our audits, we also addressed the risk of management override of internal
controls, including evaluating whether there was evidence of bias by the management board that may represent a risk of material misstatement due to fraud.
We ensured that the audit teams both at group and at component levels included the appropriate skills and competencies which are needed for the audit of a retail company. Because business operations and financial
processes of the group are automated, we included IT specialists in our audit to address the continued proper operation of relevant policies and procedures that are used to manage the IT activities. Furthermore, we included
specialists in the areas of actuarial expertise, tax and valuation in our team. Our audit was shaped by the Company's ongoing retail business activities, which were consistent with prior year, and have been further addressed
in our key audit matters section included below
Key audit
Materiality
a Overall materiality: €52 million which represents 5% of profit before tax.
Audit
scope
a We conducted audit work at eight components
a Each component is audited by teams based in the USA, Netherlands, Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Curacao.
a Site visits were conducted in four countries - USA, Netherlands, Switzerland and the Czech republic
a Audit coverage: 96% of consolidated net sales and 90% of total assets.
Key audit matters
a Recognition of vendor allowances
a Impairment testing of store assets
a Employee benefit plan measurement
Materiality
The scope of our audit is influenced by the application of materiality which is further explained in the section 'Our responsibility for the audit of the financial statements'.
We set certain quantitative thresholds for materiality. These, together with qualitative considerations, helped us to determine the nature, timing and extent of our audit procedures on the individual financial statement line items
and disclosures and to evaluate the effect of identified misstatements on our opinion.
