Essay On Auditing

However, the author argues that these audits have become increasingly ineffective. Identify and discuss at least three reasons why these audits are becoming less effective.

Appendix A.2 also lists several factors that could provide opportunities for management/employees to commit fraud. One factor that could lead to fraud is if, “There is ineffective monitoring of management as a result of: domination of management by a single person or small group without compensating controls.” The auditors should have taken notice of the lack of controls and segregation of duties with respect to Phar-Mor’s

The auditors of Enron did fail in their task of providing a duty of care to all of the parties. The main reason for this is that they failed to correctly audit the assets and financial position of Enron resulting in all stakeholders having no clue about the forthcoming collapse of Enron. This resulted in the stakeholders facing a very critical condition or a phase where in they were not sure if they would be able to recover their investments and debts or not. The auditing process has revealed several issues and findings of problems within the accounting system and the same have been discussed as the primary areas of exposure, areas of possible mishandling of accounts

With different industry definitions and viewpoints, fraud can be a tough issue for audit committee members to grasp for oversight purposes. The legal obligations of audit committee members have intensified because their standard duty of care and loyalty to the entity has increased in light of management fraud activities.

2 Managing fraud risk: The audit committee perspective Fraud in a fi nancial statement audit

Margin borrowing by investors allowed huge amounts of debt to be taken on without proper risk mitigation. Investors, knowing no better, had dumped small fortunes into the market. The fragile infrastructure of the system couldn’t handle the load and eventually caved in. Those companies that would survive the crash needed standardization and change in order for the investors’ faith to be restored. The Federal Trade Commission stepped in to fill this need. The first official document: “Verification of Financial Statements,” which was solely dedicated to provide guidance for audit, was released the same year as the crash. This document dove further than the previous decades’ pamphlets did, focusing in on small and medium sized companies, as well as the general need for the customized auditing tailored to each different companies, based on need.

Prior to 2002, financial statement reporting for publically traded companies within the United States was overseen with far less oversight in comparison to current reporting standards and procedures. Appropriate financial reporting is merely one element that was not occurring prior to 2002. An element of corporate dishonesty and deception existed within some the largest publically traded companies and this idea of deceitfulness was perpetuated by the executive staff of the businesses. Enron’s financial disintegration became the facilitator for the need of more rigid financial oversight, but they were not the only company that added to the idea of corporate fraud.

Accounting and management are the major pillars of an organization that contributes to the country’s economy. Introduction of AICPA Code of Professional Conduct helps in controlling the business operation especially in the accounting and management departments. Accounting and management fraud have been experienced whereby through corruption or other means, entrusted managers and accountants tend to be selfish in undertaking their duties. These factors are well addressed by the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct principles. Therefore, the study seeks to introduce two case studies whereby the management fraud have been experienced. Furthermore, the study will incorporate the use of AICPA Code of Professional Conduct in controlling the situation to ensure harmonious business operation in the management.

Hogan, Rezaee, Riley, and Velury (2008) noted the development of the auditing standards created due to the financial scandals that have occurred over the years. However, the authors note even with the development of SOX and SAS No. 99 there still does not appear to be a decline in financial statement fraud (232).

There were 347 alleged cases of fraud involving public company according to Fraudulent Financial Reporting: 1998-2007 sponsored by Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO, 2010) that were investigated by Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on May 2010, which is showing 53 increased in the number of fraud when compared to the 1987-1997 study (p.5). COSO’s result is a sad number in a 10 year period, which averaging close to 35 accounting frauds a year (p.5). COSO’S study shows out of the nearly 350 financial frauds investigated 60% were identified to involved improper revenue recognition and 89% were recognized the CEOs and/or CFOs involvement (p.5). COSO’s research

Following the several financial scandals of the early 2000s involving the former notorious companies such as Enron and WorldCom corporations, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 emerged. Indeed, SOX required that every publicly traded company CEO and CFO endorse the accuracy of their organizations financial statements prior to the official release. Obviously, the idea behind this decision is certainly a way to ensure the integrity of the upper management which dismisses the existence fraud on the financial statements. However, a discovery of fraudulent information on certified financial statements is subject to civil liabilities and criminal prosecutions.

Auditors should look out that the company may have the opportunity to carry out the fraud. There have certain conditions that will occur this opportunity

The auditing firm has been in engagement with the company throughout the period when the fraud was being committed. One of the common and clear indicators of possible fraud was the company’s cash flow statement. The company experienced positive growth in its profits from the year 1996 through to the year 1998. However, a close analysis of the cash flow statement shows that the company had experienced negative figures of cash flow from both operating and investing activities and positive cash flow from financing activities which would not sufficiently offset the negative cash flows from operating and investing. It is therefore evident

Fraudulent, erroneous, and illegal acts committed by a public company, usually at a managerial or executive level, have been a very serious problem for many years and have prompted development of strict and updated regulations, such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, in an attempt to prevent these occurrences. Unfortunately, these new or updated regulations are not enough to prevent these acts from happening, thus not alleviating the auditors of their responsibility to detect fraud. Some methods that management and auditors can employ to prevent and detect fraud, errors, and illegal acts are: improving knowledge, improving skills,

A number of financial statement frauds went undetected from auditors in past and attracted a high profile attention. The businessmen add fake assets or transfer the assets of companies to their personal assets and result in accounting scandals when the affected companies are bankrupted or are even close of bankruptcy. Just to mention a few names, accounting scandals of Enron, AOL Time Warner and Xerox are among the hottest accounting scandals of the century. This means that despite presence of professional auditors accounting scandals happen and there is a need to learn from the mistakes of the auditors who overlooked these activities. In this report the case study of Xerox is analyzed in detail to highlight violations of accounting principles and present an example from which lessons can be learnt for the future.