Search results for "Audit plan"
showing 10 items of 15 documents
Struggle over joint audit: on behalf of public interest?
2012
International audience; European Commission (EC 2011) has recently suggested joint audit - broadly defined as an audit where two independent auditors are jointly liable for the audit report - as a way a way to increase audit quality after the financial crisis and to mitigate audit market concentration, by enlarging the audit offer. Big 4 audit firms have fought this proposal by arguing its unbearable cost while 2nd Tier audit firms have supported it by arguing its added quality. This conflicting position leads us to question their claim of public interest concern. As group-interest economic regulation theories predict that the absence of any effect of a new regulation (here: joint audit) is…
The Impact of Audit Committee Characteristics on the Enhancement of the Quality of Financial Reporting: an empirical study in the Spanish context
2007
The purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationship between the likelihood that a company will receive a qualified audit report (as a measure of the quality of financial information) and the existence and characteristics of the audit committee (AC). For listed companies that voluntarily created an AC in the period following the publication in 1998 of the Spanish Code of Corporate Governance, known as the Olivencia Code, we find that ACs size, the percentage of independent members in ACs, company size, losses reported in either or both of the previous two years, receiving the same qualified audit opinion as in the previous year and ownership concentration affect the likelihood of receiv…
The Role of Internal Audit in Fraud Prevention and Detection
2014
Abstract This article aims to not just briefly describe the role of the internal audit in the detection of possible frauds, but also to highlight its importance in preventing the commission of frauds in any economic entity. Moreover, the analysis intends to especially point out the advantages that an internal audit can offer to the management of an economic entity and its partners, and to the society as a whole as well. Starting from the premise that auditors are not the adversaries of an entity, one should remember that: the internal audit is a function of assistance offered to the leadership of that entity in order for them to better manage their activities; it expresses judgments on all …
Consequences of the Abandonment of Mandatory Joint Audit : An Empirical Study of Audit Costs and Audit Quality Effects
2016
Abstract This paper focuses on the unique Danish setting in examining the consequences of abandoning a mandatory joint audit regime. We study the effects on audit costs (measured by audit fees) and audit quality (measured by abnormal accruals) of the abandonment of the mandatory joint audit in Denmark in 2005. We perform our analysis on non-financial listed Danish companies for the 2002–2010 period. Our results show that a joint audit is associated with higher fees, but that the association between joint audit and abnormal accruals is insignificant. This suggests that the higher audit fees cannot be explained by higher audit quality. Our results are robust to alternative measurements of fee…
Audit quality and the going-concern decision-making process: Spanish evidence
2004
In this study, we attempt empirically to investigate the relationship between audit quality and the probability that a financially distressed company would receive a going-concern opinion. Auditor decision-making in the presence of going-concern uncertainties may be characterized as a two-stage process. The first stage is the identification of a potential going-concern problem and the second stage is to determine whether the particular company should receive a qualified going-concern opinion. A sample of 1,199 non-financial Spanish company-years has been obtained from the database issued by the Stock Exchange National Commission for the fiscal years ending between December 1991 and December…
Academic Practitioner Auditors
2016
Academic practitioner auditors engage in academic research on top of their audit activities. Based on constructive learnings theory and evidence-based management theory, we argue that engaging in research helps lead auditors to deliver higher audit quality. Moreover, we expect that this engagement enables lead auditors to develop their professional reputation and, hence, to generate higher audit fees. Using data from Germany, where lead auditors frequently engage in research, we find empirical evidence for these conjectures. Our study contributes to the current AAA and AICPA debate about the value of bridging the gap between academia and audit practice.
Was the European Commission Green Paper Right? An Evaluation of the French Experience with Joint Auditing
2012
The Green Paper entitled “Audit policy: Lessons from the crisis” (European Commission, 2010) recommends the introduction of joint audit for European listed companies, based on the French experience, to limit the market dominance of the Big 4 and to promote audit quality. However, the regulation passed by the European Parliament in April 2014 does not require, but only encourages the use of two auditors for public-interest entities (European Parliament, 2014). Since many groups of interests tried to influence the European Commission during the consultation process, it is relevant to evaluate the costs and benefits for investors of the unique joint audit system that persists among the occiden…
What Dimensions of Lead Auditor Expertise Matter for Audit Quality and Audit Fees?
2015
This study investigates the effects of lead auditors’ technical and managerial knowledge on audit quality and audit fees. The German institutional environment enables us to track auditors over their careers and measure their various personal attributes. We find that lead auditors’ technical knowledge is more important for audit quality than their managerial knowledge; however, their managerial knowledge is a more influential driver of audit fees than their technical knowledge. The results of various identification strategies including firm-fixed effects models, propensity-score matching, and instrumental variables approaches suggest that the observed relations are treatment rather than sele…
Main drivers of consultancy services: A meta-analytic approach
2016
Abstract This meta-analysis incorporates the results from 34 separate studies examining fee models for consultancy services whereby the consulting firm provides both audit and advisory services to its customers. The findings indicate a number of key determinants of consultancy bills: client size, audit fees, auditors being from a “Big Audit Firm,” client's financial difficulties, and prior experience with the legal auditors. Conversely, the meta-results fail to correlate the variable of interest with several constructs commonly used in consultancy models such as the auditee's inherent risk, the client's financial debt, or the audit opinion. The study also explores the influence of three mod…
Data analytics in banks' audit: The case of loan loss provisions in Uruguay
2016
Abstract The purpose of this study is two-fold: firstly, to analyze the benefits of implementing an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and using eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) format to report in the banking industry considering the industry's specific risks and complexities. Secondly, to show that both, ERP and XBRL are necessary to successfully use Computer Assisted Audit Techniques (CAATs) while performing audit procedures to verify the compliance of certain crucial regulatory requirements. The study shows the possible consequences of not using CAATs to audit the compliance of loan loss provisions' regulatory requirements in Uruguay.