Zzzz Best

An “audit failure” is a situation in which a professional auditor fails to detect a material error in the financial statements of the company they are auditing. The audit failure in the situation of Rita Crundwell the failure was exacerbated by the fact that the auditors continually signed off on the misstated statements for years. Crundwell is responsible for many of the deficiencies mentioned, such as the missing funds and the incorrect invoices. However, she is not the sole person responsible for this fraud. The lack of internal control is to blame, and this cannot be placed on a single person. The government should have separated duties and used

Overall, there were three “red flags” E&Y was not aware of during the audit. First, they neglected the 500% net income increase from 1999-2001. This should have raised awareness because revenues only increased by 5% during that same period. Second, the internal auditors were denied access to some of the corporate ledgers. E&Y should have seen this as being one of the largest red flags. Third, the audit team failed to properly investigate employee complaints.

There were two external auditors mentioned in the case that dealt with ZZZZ Best. The first was not a firm that was included in the Big Eight accounting firms at the time. George Greenspan was the sole practitioner who performed the first full-scope independent audit for ZZZZ Best. Greenspan insisted that he had properly audited Minkow’s company, and testified that while planning the audit he had performed various analytical procedures to identify unusual relationships in ZZZZ Best’s financial data. Greenspan’s procedures reportedly included comparing ZZZZ Best’s key financial ratios with its industry norms. Greenspan identifies “unusual relationships” but does not go into detail in order to explain these unusual relationships. This shows that Greenspan did not show enough professional skepticism while conducting the audit and just blew off these unusual relationships. Also Greenspan testified that he had obtained and reviewed copies of all key documents that pertained to the false insurance restoration contracts. It would have been hard for Greenspan to uncover the fraud through the contract paperwork because Minkow and Morze went through such great detail in creating false documents in order to cover the false contracts, but finer details were overlooked by Greenspan. A journalist found one of these finer details which caused the domino effect leading to the destruction of ZZZZ Best. This shows that the first auditor,

Without a question the BOD should have placed a high degree of reliance on Andersen, which at the time was one of the most prestigious worldwide accounting firms. The auditors should have known the kind of accounting taking place in Enron. In my opinion, Andersen knew, at least to some extent, the company’s financial condition. However, Enron was already too deep under water that blowing the whistle so late would have created problems for Andersen as well. According to the case, on 02/05/01, Andersen held internal meeting during which it addressed the company’s accounting from and oversight of the LJM partnership. Andersen never discussed these concerns with the Audit and Compliance Committee. Although the BOD has its faults, it should have been able to rely on Andersen’s work.

1. There are numerous differences between performing a review and actual audit on the financial statements, but the major one is that the review does not contemplate obtaining an understanding of internal control structure. Also, a review does not assess control risk, tests of accounting records and responses to inquiries by obtaining corroborating evidence through inspection, observation or any other audit procedure. It can point out significant matters of the financial statements but does not provide assurance of their accuracy. The issue with ZZZZ Best case is that the auditors review was not sufficient enough to review any misstatements on the financial statements. Ernst & Whinney never questioned the internal control, reviewed

This case established that an auditor could be sued by a primary beneficiary for damages from negligence. A primary beneficiary is a party that has a direct benefit from the audit. Non-privity parties could also sue for gross negligence. This increased the auditor’s legal exposure to third parties. The SEC of 1934 reflected these changes and many others; one significant change was that auditor’s had a much higher litigation risk due to their new responsibility to third parties.

As the Independent Auditor I would require from Pinnacle, the client a Management Representation Letter. This is a letter an auditor is required to obtain from management at the conclusion of fieldwork, confirming representations explicitly or implicitly given to the auditor, indicating and documenting the continuing appropriateness of such representations, and reducing the possibility of misunderstanding regarding the representations.

In October 2001, Enron Corporation which was one of the world major energy, commodities and service companies with claimed revenues of nearly 111 billion dollars during 2000 collapsed under the weight of massive fraud in that it has become largest bankruptcy recognition in the US economy. Enron’s earning report was extremely skewed that losses were not represented in their entirety, prompting more and more wishing to participate in what seemed like a profitable company. After collapse of Enron, Auditor independence has become a social issue that weather auditor has to be independent or not. In addition, while auditing must consider matters objectively with dispassion, there were still doubts whether it implemented well. Further, there has been much speculation about the need for the mandatory rotation of auditors or audit firm rotation to warn false accounting between audit firm and client. By examining Enron case, this essay will discuss about advantages and drawbacks of the mandatory rotation of

Did the confidentiality agreement that Minkow required Ernst and Whitney to sign improperly limit the scope of the ZZZZ Best audit? Why or why not? Discuss general circumstances under which confidentiality concerns on the part of a client may properly affect audit planning decisions. At what point do client imposed audit scope limitations affect the type of audit opinion issued?

This paper explores the ZZZZ Best Company which was begun by a 16 year old individual who was able to pull the wool over the eyes of many customers, investors and auditors. This paper will define the difference between review and audit when it comes to financial reports, comments on the procedures provided with regard to the management assertion of occurrence, verification of payments for jobs and how they can lead auditors to improper conclusion, the purpose of predecessor-successor auditor communications, as well as whom needs to initiate the communication and information that needs to be obtained. The paper also addresses the limitations of the confidentiality agreement and how and when

The Congressional subcommittee showed interest in whether there were any communications between the predecessor-successor auditors. Greenspan, a predecessor auditor of ZZZZ Best stated that it is protocol for a successor auditor to initiate communications. However, it is now required by auditing standards (AU 315) that a successor auditor has to communicate with predecessor auditor for prospective client. The purpose for this communication

The auditor’s responsibility is not to evaluate a client’s business model but to have a sufficient understanding of the entity. An auditor needs a sound and comprehensive understanding of the client’s business and industry to develop valid expectations about financial-statement assertions.

This essay explores the corporate collapse of Harris-Scarfe on April 3 2001, which before their collapse was Australia’s third largest retail group (Buchanan 2004, p. 55). It will explore the collapse in the context of the auditing framework. In particular, how the financial indiscretions were not discovered by the auditors, which were going on as early as six years prior to the collapse (Buchanan 2004, p. 62). To start with, we define what the auditing objective is in order to work out where it failed in this case. ASA 200.11/ISA 200.11 defines the auditing objective as one that needs to ascertain reasonable assurance that the financial report as a whole is free from misstatement, whether due to error or fraud. In doing so the auditor can give an opinion of whether the financial report was prepared in accordance with the financial reporting framework (Gay & Simnett 2012, p. 12).

Assigned auditors were more than aware of the accounting misrepresentation of financial statements, overstating net income. Still instead of walking away from the client and resign, Andersen in pursuing short-term goals stayed with the company and moreover played by the Giant’s rules. More and more accounting firms at that time started to provide consulting services along with auditing to the same companies which always indicates a conflict of interests. Auditors are the guardians and rules players where consultants are giving advices and showing how to avoid some accounting oversights. Andersen also in order to make good profits stepped on the side of combining two contradicting to each other services. Waste Management had lots of former Arthur Andersen employees which also led to close ties between two companies. That situation undoubtedly led to inability to turn down fraudulent accounting practices Waste Management was exercising at that time for a long period of time.

There were many issues in this case but one of the main issues that stood out was the fact that Andersen there was a conflict of interest because Andersen was the auditor and consultant for Enron. There are positive attributes when auditing and consulting at the same time for a client such as building a relationship with the client and promotes business; allows the auditor to become familiar with the clients’ business environment, and reduces the overall cost of the client. However, when a firm audits and consults for their client, the audit/consulting firm works so closely to the client that it makes ethical decisions very difficult to make and the auditors lose objectivity and become partial due to the conflict of interest.