Checklists used to assess audit risk have been criticized for providing a false sense of security that all relevant factors are addressed, inappropriately implying equal weight to each item on the checklist, and being incapable of translating the experience or sound reasoning intended to be captured by each item on the checklist. However, they do not decrease the uniformity of data acquisition; on the contrary, they are intended to increase it by ensuring that all relevant steps are consistently followed.