In this mini case Mike Stephan is dealing with a very difficult situation because he is new to the accounting firm and wants to impress the superior accountants on his engagement team. While auditing for EarthWear, he makes a little mistake by spending too many hours looking at the wrong bank statements when he is not supposed to go over a total of 6 hours. Pressured by the senior on the audit, he is caught between lying about his hours or telling the truth and going over budget on the audit, potentially causing the other accountants on the team to look bad professionally. The first alternative that I have learned about when addressing ethical issues as a staff auditor would be to talk to the senior on the team and tell him/her exactly …show more content…
This could lead to even more confusion for Mike if everyone on his engagement team is telling him to do something he believes is wrong. A downside to listening to the senior and lying about the hours would be that Mike acted unethically and went against the accounting code of ethics as well as his own. Lastly, a downside to telling the truth about the hours would be that Mike and the other accountants all receive a bad performance evaluation and the firm looks inefficient to the client. Also, the extra time spent working on the audit might make the accountants look less competent at doing their job.
The implications of “eating time” allows the firm to charge an audit at a certain amount of hours that looks good to the client, when in reality the accountants spent additional hours because the budget was not enough to truly complete the audit. For the firm this concept prevents an over-budget audit and the auditors are perceived at being great at their job (since time is money), which the accounting world prides itself on. Mike learned about ethics and how these situations might occur in real life. He knows that “eating time” is unethical and this one request by the senior could lead to a path of more unethical decisions being made down the road.
If Mike decides not to listen to Alex and records the accurate time spent on the cash audit, then he is saving himself and the firm from
Brent has the option of “eating time” as Han has suggested. This means working off the clock but he will be able to finish under budget and look good at the firm. However, this will have an adverse effect for future budgets making it seem like the audit can be completed in less time than is even possible. Also, it fails to show the accurate cost of completing the audit. Brent also has the option of lowering the number of payables tested. If he decided to do this, Brent would be able to complete his work in less time, possible under budget and allow him to spend the rest of the time with his wife. However,
Although very unfamiliar, Hal becomes one of the four seniors, but after Ricardo resigns, Hal becomes in-charge-senior,
cognizant of the fact that the choices he makes can affect the price a buyer pays
The first ethical dilemma involves a CPA firm that has a client with a past due billing. The client owes the CPA firm $15,000 for services from eighteen months earlier. The CPA firm must decide if it is able to issue an unqualified opinion at the end of its current audit despite this past due billing.
Accountants are relied upon to be trustworthy and maintain high ethical standards. It is because of the nature of the profession that puts them in a position of trust with people who rely on their professional judgment and guidance in making decisions. These decisions are extremely important in accounting and more so that companies that have high ethical standard or main good ethical culture spend enormous time to train the staffs about the conduct that is expected of them.
1. Frame the ethical issue: Should Kevin Lowe “eat time” by taking work home and not record the time?
I see this as unethical because it is an unfair advantage over the other audit staff. Lauren will also be lying to client, who will misrepresent the efficiency of the audit. This could bring problems in the future when Lauren cannot “eat” so much time or when the audit staff is rotated.
If I were in Hamilton Wong’s position I would report all the time worked on Willie & Lomax audit because not doing so would be unethical, and it will affect the firm on estimating the budget for next year. By underreporting the time, the firm will not be able to budget their time correctly and will underbill the client. I think Lauren Hutchison behaved unethically by underreporting the time she worked because she lied on the time sheet which would eventually effect the billing. Her actual act does not reflect on the audit engagement. This act constituents of lying which is opposite of the accounting code of professional conduct.
This study aims to understand what effect has an ethical framework in accounting. In particular, we examine the influence of ethics on earnings management, financial reporting, and external accounting. Today, the commercial environment reveals the unethical behavior of management and accountants through the manipulation of accounting records to boost the company’s stock price, falsified financial statements to mislead investors, failure of auditors to correct errors and omissions due to client’s pressure and personal material interests.
In this example, Sophie is faced with the challenge of how to properly report her expenses while on her first sales trip with her new company. Emma, Sophie's mentor, and senior sale person, tells her that the company policy for filling out expense vouchers is to leave off any gratuity that the sales person pays when on a trip. The reality is that it is expected for sales people, and even encouraged by their manager, to pad their reports to calculate for the gratuity. Emma tells Sophie that when a sale person did not conform to this method of padding her expense report, she and all the other sales people from that trip were investigated. Ultimately, that sales person was either fired or quite, while the rest of the group received little to no repercussions.
Either of Brent’s alternatives would probably work out fine for the present situation. The problem would be in the future. Changing the auditing plan would probably have the least negative outcome. The accounts payable audits have been fine for the last few years and chances are this year wouldn’t be any different. Both of Brent’s alternatives are unethical because they are both deceitful and both could cause potential problems down the road – one lie leads to another and the snowball keeps getting bigger. What Brent should do and how I would handle the situation is to talk to John. Explain to him
The ethical dilemma Bob faces in this case is a transaction that makes Bob question his and the company’s ethics and legal obligations. It’s February, business was slow, the company was $5,000 below their breakeven point, and it appeared as if a
Ethical issues have greatly transformed in our lives since the great Enron, Xerox and other huge corporations proposed big profits showing earnings of billions of dollars and yet in reality facing bankruptcy. These corporations faced great trouble with the federals and state for manipulating financial statements. But not only corporations can be blamed on this, accounting firms were involved in this as much as the corporations were. With the business stand point, ethics comprises of principles and standards that guide behavior. Investors, traders, customers, and legal system determine whether a specific action is ethical or unethical. Ethical issue is a vast subject, but we will look at the niche
The word “ethics” comes from Greek ethikas meaning character. Today, we use ethics to describe the normative standard of behavior. The history of philosophical ethics has been broken up into five rational methods: Virtue, Traditional, Modern, and Post-Modern Ethics. Within these periods, the philosophy of ethics changed along with the changes being made within society.
This case study will analyse the ethical dilemmas faced by David, audit manager at C & A who is hired to do the financial year-end audit for MAL. The six step ethical framework will be adopted to gain an understanding of principles and obligations for analysing the situation faced by David and arrive to a professional and responsible resolution.