Detection Risk
Detection Risk is the risk that the auditors fail to detect a material misstatement in the financial statements.
An auditor must apply audit procedures to detect material misstatements in the financial statements whether due to fraud or error. Misapplication or omission of critical audit procedures may result in a material misstatement remaining undetected by the auditor. Some detection risk is always present due to the inherent limitations of the audit such as the use of sampling for the selection of transactions.
Detection risk can be reduced by auditors by increasing the number of sampled transactions for detailed testing.