Ethical Requirements for Auditors
A. It is extremely important to ensure that the auditing profession meets its responsibilities to its clients. While working for a company to audit their financial information, they are also at the same time working for the public and regulators who rely on externals auditors to prove credibility to the financial information that companies release (Cooper, Coram, Richardson, & Leung, 2009). To assist in quality assurance, the profession, and government have developed multilevel framework which is designed to regulate the audit profession. This framework includes: * Ethical standards: the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants Act 1996 requires that NZICA have a code of ethics that governs the professional conduct of its members, which is a form of firm regulation. * International Standards on Auditing (ISA): These standards, in particularly ISA (NZ) 220 are the back bone behind keeping quality assurance on all auditors work. It sets clear standards that auditors must follow to ensure quality audits are performed, starting at engagement level. * Professional Standards: PS-1 quality control sets basic requirements and guidance for auditors regarding a system of quality control. * Firm regulation: it is the responsibility of each public firm to implement procedures so that accountants abide by the professional standards.
Quality of auditing services may vary between auditing firms as they may adopt additional standards for each engagement, however, the one standard that all auditing firms must follow is Quality Control for an Audit of Financial Statements (ISA NZ 220) (Cooper, et al., 2009).
This standard provides auditors with information on their responsibilities (beginning pre engagement level) as an engagement partner/team. It states that it is the responsibility of the engagement partner to ensure quality control systems are in place and to encourage quality of audits to the engagement team to which that engagement partner has been
Quality of auditing services may vary between auditing firms as they may adopt additional standards for each engagement, however, the one standard that all auditing firms must follow is Quality Control for an Audit of Financial Statements (ISA NZ 220) (Cooper, et al., 2009).
This standard provides auditors with information on their responsibilities (beginning pre engagement level) as an engagement partner/team. It states that it is the responsibility of the engagement partner to ensure quality control systems are in place and to encourage quality of audits to the engagement team to which that engagement partner has been
References: Cooper, B., Coram, P., Richardson, P., & Leung, P. (2009). Modern Auditing & Assurance Services. Milton, QLD: Wiley & Sons New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants New Zealand Legislation, (1993). Companies Act 1993. Retrieved from http://www.legisla tion.govt.nz/ New Zealand Stock Exchange, (2006) [ 4 ]. Description taken from Cooper, Coram, Richardson, & Leung, 2009 p47