An organization being audited will frequently want to provide more detailed information than is required to be presented by U.S. GAAP. This additional information is considered supplemental information, or supplementary information, and is presented at the option of the organization. Some examples of supplemental information include consolidating financial schedules that provide information to support consolidated financial statements, details of certain expense categories, and other information the organization may feel will benefit readers of its financial statements.
The supplemental information always follows the footnotes. In these situations, the auditors will either include their opinion on the supplemental information in an additional paragraph to the auditor's report on the financial statements or include a separate opinion on the supplemental information only following the notes to the financial statements. This opinion, referred to as the Auditor's Opinion on Supplemental Information, will indicate the level of assurance the auditor is providing on the supplemental schedules.
Be advised that the level of assurance on the supplemental information is not at the same level as for the basic audited statements. The auditor's opinion on the supplemental information usually states either (1) the procedures applied during the financial statement audit were applied to the supplemental information and that the supplemental information is fairly stated in all material respects in relation to the financial statements as a whole; or (2) procedures applied during the audit were not applied to the supplemental information and therefore the supplemental information presented is marked “unaudited.”