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Essay on audit quality
Essay on audit quality
Essay on audit quality
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Competitive Tendering and Audit Quality
Auditing is used to enhance the degree of confidence that users of financial statements have in those statements. This is achieved through gathering sufficient evidence to come to a conclusion on whether the financial statements are prepared “in all material respects, in accordance with the applicable financial reporting framework”. (IFAC, 2013). This usually refers to how true and fair the statements are when looking at the financial position of the company at the end of the period.
The word audit is derived from the Latin word “audire”, which means “to hear”. Matthews states that the term derives from medieval book-keeping practices where auditors would hear the accounts read out for them. In the modern day, it is a process which involves the obtainment and evaluation of evidence regarding assertions about economic actions and events. (Silvoso, 1972).
Any subject matter may be audited, the most common application being related to a legal person. Other areas where auditing can be applied include: quality management, project management, energy conservation and internal controls. Auditing standards provide an important foundation supporting audit quality. Particularly in International Standards on Auditing (ISAs) issued by the IAASB, where
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More regular switching not only opens up the market to greater competition but also reduces the long tenures that can reduce the appearance of objectivity”. (Gov.uk, 2014).
This means that the more regular switching, and thus shorter tenures will ideally result in higher audit quality due to less apparent objectivity, and a fresher take on the assessment of the financial position of the company. On the other hand, it can be argued that short tenures result in the auditor having less knowledge about the client and hence a lower level of audit
Rittenberg, Larry, Bradley Schwieger, and Karla Johnstone. Auditing. 6th ed. Mason: Thomas South-Western, 2005. 10-40.
Experience as an auditor enabled me to find out necessary information, whether the interviewee was cooperative or not, but this problem reflected a reliance on more old style quality assessment in Company X, which, in my experience, frequently was seen as an attempt to blame individuals or point out they were doing something wrong. This naturally leads to some defensiveness and resistance to the audit process. Reflection confirms that the ISO standard is vital to provide clear guidance for the audit, but does not guarantee that an organisation will be performing
Since the early 1970s, the auditing profession has been under increased pressure and scrutiny by government and users of audit reports. The phrase ‘ Audit Expectations Gap’ was first coined when the AICPA put the Cohen Commission together in 1974 to investigate whether the ‘expectations gap’ existed. However, the history of the expectation gap goes right back to the start of company auditing in the nineteenth century (Humphrey and Turley 1992). Since then, events ranging from the collapse of Arthur Anderson to the ongoing savings and loan problems seemed to have made the gap become more and more apparent.
in arriving at audit opinion. Obtain audit evidence that is sufficient and appropriate is one of the most important steps that auditors should make and that is crucial in shaping the overall standard governing audit evidence. Audit evidence should be properly documented to ensure that the objective of the audit was achieved. If the objectives were not achieves, the working papers must contain documentation of failure. Also, the use of experts could be considered as audit evidence and auditors must know when their expertise is exceeded. This study therefore suggested that further empirical work should be done on the impact of evidence on audit
ABSTRACT: The paper provides a framework that describes how audit evidence combines with auditor (knowledge, traits & training, and specialization) characteristics and external environment (includes client) characteristics (e.g., client complexity, incentives, and accountability to reviewers) to produce judgments that reflect professional skepticism (hereafter PS) in auditing. The framework also describes how, given a judgment that reflects some level of PS, the judgment combines with auditor (independence) characteristics and external environment (includes client) characteristics (e.g., corporate governance, and legal liabilities) to produce actions that reflect relatively more or less PS. The framework highlights that auditors’ and external's pre-existing characteristics all combine (and potentially trade off or interact) to affect the amount of PS in audit judgment and audit actions, and thereby audit outcome (e.g., the quality of auditor's opinion professional judgment and financial reporting).
Auditing plays a vital role in business, government and economy. The key value of auditing is its ability to provide an independent assurance on the integrity and fairness of financial information produced by companies and other entities. An auditor is under a statutory duty to report to members on the company’s financial statements for an accounting period and on the accounting records relating to those financial statements (s.308). Auditors are required to provide an auditor’s report to the members (i.e. shareholders with voting rights) of the company concerning the financial statement audit. The auditor must express an opinion on whether the financial statements are in accordance with the Corporations Act, comply with accounting standards (s.296) and give a true and fair view (s. 297).
The Big Four are international in scope and employ a large number of people. They have provided more training to their staff. Auditors working in a large office have greater exposure to different clients, and therefore have more collective experience which enables them to provide higher quality audits. This will able the auditors have more opportunity to interact with different clients. Therefore, the Big Four can help the audit market to train professionals’ auditors (8). For example, the experiences auditor can work very well and can spotlight the grey area faster. This is because an auditor is forming an independent opinion whether the financial statements give a true and fair view. Such a task needs to be performed by professional audit personnel.
Audits have the ability to improve a company’s profitability as well as its efficiency through aiding the management to understand their own financial systems and working plans. Each member inside the company starting from the management, suppliers , shareholders along with financers can be a assured that any possible risks in their organization are studied well & effective systems are applied in place to control them. Audits can also be used to identify areas in the financial structure of an organization that needs to be improved, it can also aid in the process of implementation of proper adjustments or changes. Although this is not the main purpose of audits, it can be used for internal fraud detection such that it can be considered as a part of a financial inaccuracy. It can be used to strengthen and reinforce the internal
Audit quality is often defined as the probability that auditors will detect and report misstatements or unintentional measurement errors in the financial statements (DeAngelo 1981). This stems from an auditor’s competence and independence, in both how they are perceived and in actuality (Watkins et al 2004). This is of vital importance to analysts because financial statements form the basis of forecast inputs. The outcome of a financial analysis model can only be as accurate as the values used to create said model. As such, if input values are inaccurate, the output (forecasts) would no doubt also be erroneous. Dang (2004) argues that by limiting errors in the historical data used to formulate forecasts, high quality audits will improve the
Information technology has advanced to the point where continuous auditing is vital to the continuation of the auditing profession. Auditing had moved away from the more manual operations to becoming increasingly more computer based. Continuous auditing is necessary in providing stakeholders real time assurance. Without these assurances, management or stakeholders may make inappropriate decisions concerning resource allocation (Chan & Vasarhelyi, 2011).
It helps an organization accomplish its objectives by bringing a systematic, disciplined approach to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of risk management, control, and governance processes.” (The Institute of Internal Auditors, 2009). Internal auditors are either employed by the company or outsourced from a different company. If employed by the company, internal auditors are less lenient because of their connection to their employer versus that of an external auditor. “External auditors are not embedded as deeply within clients” day to day as internal auditors.”(Stefanick, Houston and Cornell, 2012) Even though internal auditors are usually more objective, there are times when that is untrue depending on many factors. Employers are increasingly looking to meet the ever-changing regulations surrounding the practice of auditing. Therefore, the need to hire a dedicated internal employee is strong. However, in some instances, hiring is not feasible, which alludes to the reason of
An auditor is an accountant that is hired to review a company’s financial statements and give an opinion on them. There are different kinds of auditor such as internal, external, and governmental, but their jobs are relatively the same. They are used to ensure that a company or organization is maintaining accurate and honest financial records so that others can use them with confidence.
I believe my audiences has already understood some about audit through our presentation. This report will show the power points of auditing in my presentation, as well as show the reasons of why I choose an internal auditor as my career. The next section is going to explain what internal audit and internal auditor is.
The evolution of auditing is a complicated history that has always been changing through historical events. Auditing always changed to meet the needs of the business environment of that day. Auditing has been around since the beginning of human civilization, focusing mainly, at first, on finding efraud. As the United States grew, the business world grew, and auditing began to play more important roles. In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, people began to invest money into large corporations. The Stock Market crash of 1929 and various scandals made auditors realize that their roles in society were very important. Scandals and stock market crashes made auditors aware of deficiencies in auditing, and the auditing community was always quick to fix those deficiencies. The auditors’ job became more difficult as the accounting principles changed, and became easier with the use of internal controls. These controls introduced the need for testing; not an in-depth detailed audit. Auditing jobs would have to change to meet the changing business world. The invention of computers impacted the auditors’ world by making their job at times easier and at times making their job more difficult. Finally, the auditors’ job of certifying and testing companies’ financial statements is the backbone of the business world.
Origin: proof of origin easily established. Audit is an industry which has existed and developed for a long time in paper. The standard of this industry was built already, the proof of origin will be found very easily, the rule is there already.