Government Management And Oversight Of Public Firms

The audit profession is a relative new comer to the accounting world. The Industrial Revolution, with the growing business sector, was the spark that resulted in auditing techniques being sought out and utilized. Initially, audit techniques and methods were adopted by companies to control costs and detect fraud, which is more closely aligned with internal auditing. However, the need for mandatory oversight of public companies was recognized after the great stock market crash of 1929 (Byrnes, et al., 2012). This brought about the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 creating the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). At that point, the SEC was tasked with

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the SEC’s influence on auditing a private company and the essential activities involved in the initial planning of an audit. Next the discussion will delve into four stages of the audit and tasks performed by the auditors as well as internal control findings and various aspects of the audit.

* U.S. governmental oversight of accounting fraud and abuse and its effect on the company Potential corruption schemes to be aware of in the company

With the induction of SOX, Section 301 dictates that the boards of directors for each publicly traded organization are required to fund and create an internal audit committee or have the entire board serve as the committee, with a minimum of three independent members, accountable for selecting and directing an external independent accounting firm responsible for confirming the integrity of the organization’s financial reports, and creating a process to address

The act endorses companies to change the practice and regulations of accounting and auditing. It required them to maintain good financial recorded which were different than the past. The management team is held personally liable for the reliability and accuracy of the financial statements. All publically listed companies must establish a system of internal controls which must be evaluated by management at least quarterly and external auditors are required to conduct independent assessments of company’s in –house internal controls as well as report any fault or fraudulent acts they observe.

The Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002 enacted many new legislations including the creation of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, which inspects audits of public companies, increased regulations on auditor independence, prohibiting certain non-audit activities, increased corporate responsibility of company executives and management for financial reports, timely and accurate disclosure requirements, and management’s responsibility to design and test the effectiveness of internal controls. These legislations are just a few of the key sections of the Sarbanes Oxley Act among many others and have has a great impact on public auditors and the audit process of public companies. Although many of these new requirements and regulations require more detail, time, and money to implement, they help to protect the public interest of investors and restore the public’s trust in auditors and the financial reports of corporations and business that must follow the policies the forth in the Sarbanes Oxley Act.

Internal controls are regulated by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. This act assigns responsibility for a company’s internal controls on its executives and directors (Kiesco et.al., 2008). This assignment of responsibility forces the company to use effective internal controls by making a certain group responsible. The act also established the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board which regulates the activities of auditors. Together, assigning responsibility and defining the standards of auditors, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 helps to safeguard a company’s investments, assets and future successes by discouraging fraud and theft.

The SOX act was put in place to force companies to obtain audits of the internal operation. The internal investigations were put in place to reduce the amount of in house fraud that businesses receive from their employees. Based on SOX audits, “Markets have been able to use the information to assess companies more effectively, managers have improved internal processes, and the internal control testing has become more cost-effective over time, per Srinivasan (Hanna, 2014)”. Companies that use the internal audits to properly manage their companies, will see a decline in fraud within their

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) of 2002, aims to combat fraud, improve the reliability of financial reporting and restores investor confidence. Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley emphasize the management’s responsibility in maintaining a sound internal-control structure of financial reporting and assessing its own effectiveness. While the auditors’ responsibility is to attest to the soundness of management’s assessment and to report on the state of the overall financial control system. Although it has been a question by most executives, however, some approached the new law with gratitude. As SOX went into effect, more executives had realized the need for internal reforms; they were startled by the weaknesses and gaps of their internal control that compliance reviews and assessments had exposed.

The SOX Act has always been described as “an endless list of compliance requirements” with no productive benefit (Hunter, 2007). Most of the costly compliance requirements are included in section 404 of SOX Act. “It’s turned out to be a gorilla,” said Charles Elson , “Its costs are phenomenal” (Quoted by Philadelphia Business Journal). Despite the unapparent recovery of investors’ confidence, complaints about the greatly increased costs have been heard everywhere. Obviously, the complaints came from the affected companies. To comply with the requirements of section 404 of SOX which is related to internal control, audit firms need to spend much more on the testing of a company’s internal control, the cost of which would certainly be passed on to their clients. In addition to increasing audit fees paid to auditors, more costs have been

SOX had transformed the auditing industry from a self-regulated one to an industry controlled by a quasi-government agency. It also enabled measures to reduce conflicts of interests between auditors and their clients. PCAOB could oversee the actions of external auditors who directly monitors the financial reporting and form the first line of defense against potential earnings or accounting manipulation. Though external auditors were theoretically supposed to provide assurance, there was an inherent conflict of interest in the system of auditing companies. SOX restrictions on non-audit-related service does not show improvement on audit quality. PCAOB is recognized strictly in the United States and has no jurisdiction over issuers, audit committees,

Professional trends, particularly the demand for faster reporting of financial information as suggested by Securities Exchange Commission’s (SEC) recent reporting period change[2], put pressure on auditors to rely on internal rather than more persuasive external evidence items (CICA, 1999; Bierstaker et al., 2001; Helms, 2002; Hunton et al., 2003; LeGrand, 2002; SEC, 2002, 2005).

Audit committees incorporating SOX principles have spent a lot of time on SOX compliance issues, while sometimes neglecting strategy concerns. However, once past the learning curve, they started focusing more on increasing business value (p. 1). They are paying more attention to effective accounting principles and risk, since they have to help restore confidence in corporations (p. 1). They need to make sure financial projections are sound and accurate based on earnings and income estimates, before the information is released to the public. They should also assist management mitigate financial risks, as their responsibility is to understand and sign off on management’s approach (p. 2). Ever since SOX, restatements have increased (from 50 to 3000 from 2005 to 2007; increasing costs and driving declines in stock prices) and audit committees have needed independent auditors more often to be compliant (p. 3). These issues need to be resolved once and for all by focusing on the committee’s composition (a member of the board of directors of the issuer and independent should be privileged as per section 301 of SOX provisions). They should also include financial experts that will help decipher financial statements in which the audit committee will relay to the board, as well as assess competition’s performances (p. 3).

Section 1 2 3 4 Introduction and Assessment Outcomes and Criteria Internal Controls and Fraud Finding weaknesses and making recommendations Business English Report Plan Deadlines Report Guide Other requirements page 3 6 9 12

Internal auditors cannot effectively provide an analysis on the company’s internal dealings as they are part of the company. External auditors, however, can observe these processes from the outside and then determine where the funds of the company and whether the dealings adhere to the regulations. Using external auditors in a company prevents conflict of interest from happening. Conflict of interest is a situation where an individual or organization has multiple interests and of those multiple interests, one could possible corrupt the motivation for an act on the other when the auditor has any kind of beneficial interest in their client’s performance. In other circumstances, there is also the threat of familiarity where auditors become