The Importance Of Professional Scepticism And Their Objectivity

In the world of business, it is so obvious that Certified Public Accountants are playing an extremely important role to the public. Working as Certified Public Accountants, it is so special that they provide accounting professional services not to a specific person but to the whole public. Therefore, the ethics and conducts of the Certified Public Accountants becomes much more important because it affects the reasonable operation and successful development of the whole industry. So, as a professional accountant, we need take the duties that required by the AICPA code of ethics --- “professional competence, confidentiality, integrity, and objectivity".

PCAOB describes professional skepticism as a general duty of care that needs to be applied by the auditor throughout the duration of the audit engagement. Professional skepticism involves the auditor having a clear and questioning mind regarding the assertions that are presented by management or other client personnel. The auditor is instructed to not take the words or data presented by management as sufficient and appropriate audit evidence but rather the auditor needs to thoroughly audit the evidence with a questioning mind to achieve reasonable assurance about the persuasiveness of the evidence. Skepticism is composed of three elements; auditor attributes, mindset and actions. The PCAOB

Proper conduct and ethical behavior are important, because auditors are party to confidential information and it is important this trust not be abused. This essay discusses the purpose of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and delves into the definitions of the six principles of the Code. It explores to whom this Code applies and what should be considered its key principle. The next

Summary: The objective of this article is to clarify the significance of professional skepticism as an essential part of the auditor’s mindset, and to consider the reasons why approaching an audit with an attitude of professional skepticism is becoming increasingly important. The following are three case studies that will concentrate your consideration on what it takes to be a skeptical auditor when performing journal entry testing.

The Model of Trust Enhancement was established to enhance and maintain the public’s trust in the accounting profession. Over the last two decades, the ethics of the accounting profession has been questioned and public trust destabilized, in particular for auditors, due to the Enron debacle. The fact that an auditing firm would assist their clients with publishing an inadequate set of financial statements shows their willingness to violate laws and regulations (Sims & Brinkmann, 2003). According to the textbook, “Because trust is essential, even the appearance of an accountant’s honesty and integrity is important. The auditor, therefore, must not only be trustworthy, but he or she must also appear trustworthy” (Duska, Duska & Ragatz, 2011, p. 116). The majority of statements filed inadequately have a substantial impact on the credibility of the accounting profession as a whole. Sullivan (n.d.10) states that a CPA must possess a high level of trust, by applying professional judgment and enhancing the three trustworthy characteristics (ability, benevolence, and integrity) when resolving accounting ethics dilemmas (slide 3).

Use of due professional care, that is, whether the internal audit group has effective quality control

Due to increasing economic and financial growth, many types of audit have been incorporated throughout the development process of internal activities. Audits can be performed manually or they can incorporate technology. According to Hunton and

Our textbook defines professional skepticism as follows: Professional skepticism — a questioning mind and a critical examination of audit evidence. The appropriate level of professional skepticism varies depending upon the risks of the particular situation. (Arens, Elder, Beasley, & Jones, 2015, p. 67).

Professional scepticism is an attitude which is adopted by an auditor to conduct the audit. The auditor needs to maintain a questioning mind and seek independent evidence to corroborate information provided by client. In the aspect of professional judgement, an auditor uses the level of expertise, knowledge and training to conduct an audit. The auditor should judge the information source’s reliability and the evidence’s sufficiency. Due care means that auditor needs to apply standards and document each stage of the audit process when conducting an audit. In the case of Kleenmaid, the auditor needs to adopt an attitude of professional scepticism to recognize the possibility that a material misstatement could exist because of fraud. They must remain independent of their client and search for evidence thoroughly to validate information provided by Kleenmaid’s board of directors. Furthermore, the auditor has the responsibility to assess the risk of fraud by considering the incentives and pressures, and opportunities to perpetrate a fraud, and attitudes and rationalisation to justify a fraud. In the case, Kleenmaid had debts of nearly $100 million in 2009, which is the significant incentive or pressure considered by the auditor to commit a fraud. In addition, Kleenmaid operated as an importer and distributor of whitegoods, with 22 outlets, 15 franchises, and 22 staffs. This means the company will have a high volume of

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

Professional skepticism practices as neutral but discipline approach to detection and investigation. Per SAS No. 1 it suggests that an auditor neither assumers that management is dishonest or assumes unquestionable honesty. Professional skepticism requires fraud examiners to “pull on thread” in which means Red flags are warning signal or something that demands attention or provokes an irate reaction. Red Flag symptoms of fraud may be divided into at least six categories: unexplained accounting anomalies, exploited internal control weaknesses, identified analytical anomalies where non

Abstract:Professional competence is one of the fundamental principles of the Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants.However,more and more firms accept engagements without enough competent professional skills,which turns out that,there are so much problems they can 't figure out or deal with,at last,they have to take the legal liabilities.Along with the expositions of fraud made by listed companies.The public become suspicious about professional competence of the certified public accountants.Because of the indignant denouncement of the investors,their prestige drops to

The aim of this essay is to study the function of external auditors in order to analyze why it is important to be independent. The primary mission of external auditors is to review and evaluate all the financial records of a company or corporation. They provide an objective opinion on the organization’s financial statement and effectiveness of the accounting polices in order to help management to make decisions. If the independence of the external auditors is impaired, the public will doubt the quality of professional auditing services, and the consequence would be very serious, just like the bankruptcy of Enron led to the disorganization of Arthur Andersen, once a giant accounting company in the world. In order to maintain and increase

Professional skepticism is key to the execution of compelling reviews under Public Company Accounting Oversight Board ("PCAOB" or "Board") gauges. Those benchmarks require that proficient wariness be connected all through the review by every individual examiner on the engagement group.

The role of internal audit is to provide independent declaration that an organization’s threatadministration, governance and internal control processes are functioning effectively. Internal auditors deal with concerns that are essentially important to the existence and success of any organization. Unlike external auditors, they aspect beyond financial possibilities and statements to reflect wider problems such as the organization’s reputation, development, its power on the location and the approach it treats its organizations.In summary, internal accountantssupport organizations to thrive.