Judgmental Sampling

The Judgement sampling is where, auditor using his own experience and awareness of the client's business and situations selects the sample to be tested with no use of any mathematical or statistical equipments. Statistical sampling is the drawing of inferences around a large volume of data by an inspection of a sample using statistical techniques in its selection.

The benefits of judgment sampling:

• The approach is fine understood and has been cultured by experience over several years;
• The auditor is provided a chance to bring his judgement and proficiency into play. After all auditing is an exercise in professional judgement;
• No special information of statistics is needed;
• No time is wasted playing with mathematics;

Its disadvantages are:

• It is not scientific;
• It is extravagant and generally too large samples are chosen;
• You cannot extrapolate the outcomes to the population as an entire as the samples are not representative;
• Personal bias in choosing the sample is unavoidable;
• There is no sense to the choice of the sample or its size;
• The sample choice is so erratic that it cannot be said to have applied to all matter in the year;
• The conclusions reached are generally vague.

Judgement sampling is yet the preferred technique by the majority of auditors and this is defended on the grounds which the auditor is weighing numerous pieces of evidence and is investigating many things at similar time that the entire procedure is too complex to be reduced to easy formulas.