...ACCOUNTING AND AUDITING May 15, 2007 Contents Executive Summary Preface Abbreviations and Acronyms I. Introduction II. Institutional Framework III. Accounting Standards as Designed and as Practiced IV. Auditing Standards as Designed and as Practiced V. Perception of the Quality of Financial Reporting VI. Policy Recommendations EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This report provides an assessment of accounting and auditing practices within the corporate sector in Cambodia with reference to the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), and the International Standards on Auditing (ISA) issued by the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC). This assessment is positioned within the broader context of the Cambodia’s institutional framework and capacity needed to ensure the quality of corporate financial reporting Cambodia is putting in place an institutional framework with regard to accounting, auditing, and financial reporting practices. However, institutional weaknesses in regulation, compliance, and enforcement of standards and rules still exist. The accounting and auditing statutory framework suffers from inconsistencies among different laws. Although the national accounting standards and auditing standards are based on IFRS, and ISA, respectively, they appear outmoded and have gaps in comparison with the international equivalents. There are varying compliance gaps in both accounting and auditing practices. These gaps could...
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...Instructions 1. Construct a template that will be the guide throughout the writing process. This will improve how the document looks, feels and reads. Consistency in these three items is key to a good case study. 2. Draw your reader in with a unique title. It should attract the reader and make them want to read more. 3. Begin writing the paper. Start by identifying the problem that is being explored in the case study. 4. Explore the problem, including cause, effect and theory. Give as much background as possible. 5. Discuss the possible solution, and/or how this issue was specifically resolved. Tell what methods were used in the process. 6. Describe benefits of the study. Tell how the benefits overall affect the group to which your case study is aimed. 7. Utilize the general-to-specific-to-general approach. This is the approach to use because it draws the reader in, demonstrates a specific example, and then shows how it applies to the group as a whole. It also shows the reader how they can address their own problem this way. Tips & Warnings • Use facts and numbers where possible. This is specifically aimed at the benefits portion of the case study. Potential readers will be compelled with the numbers and how they are affected by them and remain interested. • Use photos if necessary. If photos are used, be sure they are professionally done so as to not sully the quality of the case study. • Have an executive sign off...
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...References American Institution of CPAs. (2014). Code of Professional Conduct: ET Section 100-1 Conceptual Framework for AICPA Independence Standards. Retrieved from http://www.aicpa.org/Research/Standards/CodeofConduct/Pages/et_100.aspx Bhattacharjee, S., & Moreno, K. K. (2013). The Role of Auditors' Emotions and Moods on Audit Judgment: A Research Summary with Suggested Practice Implications. Current Issues In Auditing, 7(2), 1-8. Gendron, Y., Suddaby, R., & Lam, H. (2006). An Examination of the Ethical Commitment of Professional Accountants to Auditor Independence. Journal of Business Ethics, (2). 169-193. Hurtt, R., Brown-Liburd, H., Earley, C. E., & Krishnamoorthy, G. (2013). Research on Auditor Professional Skepticism: Literature Synthesis and Opportunities for Future Research. Auditing: A Journal Of Practice & Theory, 3245-97. Kinney, W. R. (2005). Twenty-Five Years of Audit Deregulation and Re-Regulation: What Does it Mean for 2005 and Beyond?. Auditing: A Journal Of Practice & Theory, 24,89-109. KPMG LLP. (2013). The KPMG Professional Framework-Understanding and Developing Professional Judgment in Auditing and Accounting Moore, D. A., Tetlock, P. E., & Tanlu, L. (2006). Conflicts of Interest and the Case of Auditor Independence: Moral Seduction and Strategic Issue Cycling. Academy Of Management Review, 31(1), 10-29. Nelson, M. W. (2006). AMELIORATING CONFLICTS OF INTEREST IN AUDITING: EFFECTS OF RECENT REFORMS ON AUDITORS AND THEIR CLIENTS. Academy Of Management...
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...responsible for, the whirlwind of accounting and business scandals that rocked the US markets in 2002. To restore investor confidence in financial information, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act created a new Public Company Accounting Oversight Board with the authority to set standards for auditors of publicly traded companies, thus ending a century of professional regulation of auditing. In this analysis we employ sociological theories of professionalism [1-4] to help understand the implications of the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation for the accounting profession and for the public interest. We explain why professional self-regulation is important for retaining valuable economic franchises. We also explain why the public interest orientation of the profession is important and how government take-over of auditing standards potentially erodes the public accounting profession’s commitment to the public interest. Self-control over professional work, a key characteristic of professional status, is pre-empted by the newly created government oversight body PCAOB. With government takeover of oversight of auditing practice, claims to professional status are weakened and professional commitment to and involvement with vital work standards may suffer. In addition, the profession may no longer have incentives to promote the public interest or to innovate and...
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...Audit and assurance services Assurance services are independent professional services that improve the quality of information for decision makers. Assurance services include attestation services, which are any services in which the CPA firm issues a report that expresses a conclusion about the reliability of an assertion that is the responsibility of another party. The four categories of attestation services are audits of historical financial statements, attestation on the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting, reviews of historical financial statements, and other attestation services. Accounting and bookkeeping services Accounting services involve preparing the client's financial statements from the client's records. Bookkeeping services include the preparation of the client's journals and ledgers as well as financial statements. Tax services Tax services include preparation of corporate, individual, and estate returns as well as tax planning assistance. Management consulting services These services range from suggestions to improve the client's accounting system to computer installations. 2-1 2. 3. 4. 2-2 The major characteristics of CPA firms that permit them to fulfill their social function competently and independently are: 1. Organizational form A CPA firm exists as a separate entity to avoid an employer-employee relationship with its clients. The CPA firm employs a professional staff of sufficient size to prevent one client from constituting...
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...Section 550 Quality Assurance and Practice review of the MIA By-Laws (on professional ethics, conducts and practice) and ISA220 Quality Control for an Audit of Financial Statements, do you believe that the engagement leader of an audit (like David Duncan on the Enron audit) should have authority to overrule the opinions and recommendations of the accounting & auditing function? Why or why not? In our opinion, the engagement leader of an audit should not have the authority to overrule the opinions and recommendations of the accounting and auditing function. To support our judgment, we refer the case to Section 550 Quality Assurance and Practice Review of the MIA By-Laws and ISA 220 Quality Control for an Audit of Financial Statement. Section 550.1 The By-Laws states that every member in public practice has to ensure that the firm adopts and applies policies and procedures designed to maintained adherence to professional standard. Enron had been hiding its Special Purpose Entity (SPE) by not consolidating the entity into its financial statements. The SPE were used to embezzle funds and hide the firm’s debts and expenses. This caused the firm to have understated expenses and profitable financial statements. The action of creating SPE is totally against the fundamental principles of auditing in terms of integrity. The principle of integrity imposes an obligation on all professional accountants to be straightforward and honest in all professional and business relationships. Integrity...
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...AUDITING AND THE PUBLIC ACCOUNTING PROFESSION AUDITING AND ASSURANCE SERVICES DEFINED Auditing plays a vital role in business, goverment, and our economy. As a vocation, auditing offers the opportunity for challenging and rewarding careers in public accounting, industry and goverment. Many auditors develop a client based with a concentration in one or more key industries. As a result of serving many client in similar industries, few individuals understand the key competitiveness factors for a business better than auditor. Individuals choosing an auditing in a public accounting firm have the opportunity to progress from a starting position of staff assisstant to senior auditor, to manager and then to partner. Regardless of their career path, most auditors are recognized for their expertise in evaluating organizational performance. AUDITING DEFINED The term auditing is used to describe a broad range of activities in our society. The Report of the Committee on Basic Auditing Concepts of the American Accounting Association defines auditing as : “a systematic process of objectively obtaining and evaluating evidence regarding assertion about economic actions and events to ascertain the degree of correspondence between those assertions and established criteria and communicating the results to interested users.” Several attributes of auditing contained in this definition merit special comment: 1. A systematic process connotes a logical, structured, and organized...
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...assurance services Assurance services are independent professional services that improve the quality of information for decision makers. Assurance services include attestation services, which are any services in which the CPA firm issues a report that expresses a conclusion about the reliability of an assertion that is the responsibility of another party. The four categories of attestation services are audits of historical financial statements, attestation on the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting, reviews of historical financial statements, and other attestation services. 2. Accounting and bookkeeping services Accounting services involve preparing the client's financial statements from the client's records. Bookkeeping services include the preparation of the client's journals and ledgers as well as financial statements. 3. Tax services Tax services include preparation of corporate, individual, and estate returns as well as tax planning assistance. 4. Management consulting services These services range from suggestions to improve the client's accounting system to computer installations. 2-2 The major characteristics of CPA firms that permit them to fulfill their social function competently and independently are: 1. Organizational form A CPA firm exists as a separate entity to avoid an employer-employee relationship with its clients. The CPA firm employs a professional staff of sufficient size to prevent one client from...
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...CHAPTER 1 AUDITING AND THE PUBLIC ACCOUNTING PROFESSION – INTEGRITY OF FINANCIAL REPORTING |LEARNING CHECK | 1. SEVERAL COMMON ATTRIBUTES OF ACTIVITIES DEFINED AS AUDITING ARE (A) SYSTEMATIC PROCESS, (B) OBJECTIVELY OBTAINING AND EVALUATING EVIDENCE, (C) ASSERTIONS ABOUT ECONOMIC ACTIONS AND EVENTS, (D) DEGREE OF CORRESPONDENCE, (E) ESTABLISHED CRITERIA, (F) COMMUNICATING THE RESULTS, AND (G) INTERESTED USERS. 2. A financial statement audit involves obtaining and evaluating evidence about an entity's financial statements for the purpose of expressing an opinion on whether the statements are presented fairly in conformity with established criteria--usually GAAP. Thus, the nature of the auditor's report is an opinion on the fairness of the financial statement presentation. A compliance audit involves obtaining and evaluating evidence to determine whether certain financial or operating activities of an entity conform to specified conditions, rules, or regulations. A report on a compliance audit takes the form of a summary of findings or assurance regarding degree of compliance. An operational audit involves obtaining and evaluating evidence about the efficiency and effectiveness of an entity's operating activities in relation to specified objectives. Reports on such audits include an assessment of efficiency and effectiveness and recommendations for improvements. 3. Independent auditors are individual practitioners or members of public...
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...Payal Mehta ACC416 October 1, 2013 Auditing Research Paper The profession of auditing plays a very important role in our economy especially after Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act its role in the economy was greatly solidified. Auditing is the accumulation and evaluation of evidence about information to determine and report on the degree of correspondence between the information and established criteria. Auditing should be done by a competent, independent person. “The auditing profession offers a wide range of employment opportunities for new accountants. Most accounting firms offer client services in three areas: auditing, tax, and consulting. A new accountant might be hired to work in any of these areas. In the audit area, the accountant may work for a variety of clients including private or public companies, clients in banking, insurance, manufacturing, technology, retail, health care, or government. Individuals working in the audit area may also spend most of their time providing internal audit services to clients rather than working as an external auditor. Working in any of the areas in an accounting firm may be one of the most demanding jobs, but it is also one of the most interesting, exciting experiences and a great way to prepare to work in the corporate business world.” “What is Auditing?” Web. 29 September 2013 Accounting is the recording, classifying, and summarizing of economic events in a logical manner...
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...organisations has created the need for a specialist in various business controls: the internal auditor. We can understand better the nature of internal auditing today if we know something about the changing conditions in the past and the different needs these changes created. What is the earliest form of internal auditing and how did it come into existence? How has internal auditing responded to changing needs? As the operations of an organisation become more voluminous and complex, it is no longer practicable for the owner or top manager to have enough contact with all operations to satisfactorily review the effectiveness of performance. These responsibilities need to be delegated. The Development of the Profession of Internal Auditing Internal auditing has evolved from accounting-oriented to a management-oriented profession. At one time, internal auditing functioned as a junior to the independent accounting profession, and attesting to the accuracy of financial matters was the profession's main concern. Now internal auditing has established itself with a far broader focus. Modern internal auditing provides services that include the examination and appraisal of controls, performance, risk and governance throughout public and private entities. Financial matters represent only one aspect of the purview of internal auditing. Requirement to have Internal Audit Activity In January 2004, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had approved new rules proposed...
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...Accredited Tertiary Courses Listing 2012 Accredited Tertiary Courses Listing 2012 – as at 26 September 2012 1 2012 Accredited Undergraduate Courses AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY The Australian National University University of Canberra NEW SOUTH WALES Australian Catholic University Australian Institute of Higher Education Avondale College Charles Sturt University Kings Own Institute Macquarie University Southern Cross University Top Education Institute The University of New England The University of New South Wales The University of Newcastle The University of Sydney University of Technology, Sydney University of Western Sydney University of Wollongong Williams Business College NORTHERN TERRITORY Charles Darwin University QUEENSLAND Australian Catholic University Bond University Central Queensland University Christian Heritage College Griffith University James Cook University Queensland University of Technology The University of Queensland The University of Southern Queensland University of the Sunshine Coast SOUTH AUSTRALIA Flinders University Kaplan Business School The University of Adelaide University of South Australia Open Universities (conferred by Uni of SA) TASMANIA University of Tasmania VICTORIA Australian Catholic University Cambridge International College Carrick Higher Education Deakin University Holmes Institute Holmesglen Institute of TAFE La Trobe University Melbourne Institute of Technology Monash University Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE RMIT...
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...Notes I.28 Session – I important that they would affect the auditor’s report if not resolved. They include the following: • Matters that are significant and involve issues regarding the appropriate selection, application and consistency of accounting principles pertaining to the financial statements, including related disclosures. Such matters often relate to accounting for complex or unusual transactions or to estimates and uncertainties and any applicable management assumptions. Results of auditing procedures that indicate the financial statements or disclosures could be materially misstated or that the auditing procedures need to be significantly modified. Circumstances that cause the auditor significant difficulty in applying auditing procedures he or she considers necessary. Other findings that could result in modification of the auditor’s report. Compliance of Auditing Standards and Audit Documentation – a must for all practice units satisfy any applicable legal or regulatory requirements for records retention. Internationally the norm is assemble the final audit file and submit it for archiving within 60 days from the date of our audit report. The PCAOB standard has shortened this period to 45 days. 51 The auditor would also need to adopt procedures that enable him or her to gain access to the documentation throughout that period. One way for auditors to accomplish this is by creating a policy to maintain electronic documentation. One needs to bear in mind...
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...The Effect and Importance of the Audit and the Performance of Auditing in Sudan This study by : Babiker Othamn Omer Saad This paper conducted to study in an in-depth research of the importance of the auditing performance , the subject matter of this research mainly focused on not having available quantitative measuring tools which evaluate the risk , therefore, we find that in most of the time there is threatening risk , based on that the auditing practice will not lead to trace the intrinsic forgery cases even when the agreed measurement of auditing is applied. The main aim of this study is to shade light on the types of risks in auditing performance and to build understanding of the importance of the relevant relation between tis and practice , the researcher uses the assumptions e.g the relation between auditing practice and the risk of auditing mainly depends on the evaluating and reporting of the auditor, planning of the audit process implies a comprehensive strategy of evaluating and implementing the auditing operation, this paper also proved that there is a relation between the quantitative audit reporting and enough clues of prove . This research proved that we cannot neglect the audit process and this considered as an entrance to better of the organization which will facilitate professional performance of the audit process. Based on the outcome of this study the researcher came out with the following recommendations: * The organizational firms should develop the...
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...arose from the number of companies that restated their previously issued financial statements as a result of accounting irregularities and fraud. Especially responsible were the very visible Enron and WorldCom fraud cases. Both companies filed for bankruptcy and constituted the largest companies in American history to do so. The extent of the accounting irregularities and fraud being investigated and disclosed brought into question the effectiveness of financial statement audits. In addition, the criminal conviction of Arthur Andersen, LLP, one of the then Big 5 accounting firms, on charges of destroying documents related to the Enron case brought into question the ethical standards of the profession. 1–2 Assurance services are professional services that enhance the quality of information, or its context, for decision making. The two types are: (a) those that increase the reliability of information and (b) those that involve putting information in a form or context that facilitates decision making. 1–3 A financial statement audit is, by far, the most common type of attest engagement. The overall assertion, made by management, most frequently is that the financial statements follow generally accepted accounting principles. 1–4 A large corporation with securities listed on a stock exchange is required by the rules of the stock exchange and by the rules of the Securities and Exchange Commission to provide an audit report with the annual financial statements furnished...
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