engleski

Analytical Procedures in an Auditors Assessment of the Going Concern Assumption for Unstable Companies

Going concern assumption is a fundamental accounting assumption which is not explicitly pointed out when preparing financial statements but it is implicitly assumed. Given that management is responsible for the published financial statements, it is their responsibility to assess before the presentation of financial statements whether this assumption is violated. On the other hand, the auditor has a responsibility to assess if financial statements present true and fair view of financial position and business performance of a company. However, true and objective financial statements are not a guarantee that a company is a going concern. In this sense, the assessment of going concern assumption of illiquid and insolvent companies is a significant problem for auditor has the responsibility to inform the users of financial statements if management’s evaluation of going concern assumption is appropriate or not. International auditing standards do not provide clear guidance on assessment procedures for unstable companies. In practice, among other auditing procedures different analytical procedures are used to assess going concern assumption. If the going concern assumption is violated, auditor is obliged to put emphasis on the matter in the auditor's report. In this chapter the analytical procedures are applied with the aim to determine whether there are statistically significant differences between the companies which, according to the auditor’s judgement, operate with a going concern issue and those who did not get such evaluation. In addition, the management’s evaluation and the auditor's opinion of the going concern assumption is compared for selected companies. The aim of such a comparison is to determine whether the management’s and the auditor's assessments of going concern assumption differ, which is highly influenced by the quality of audits carried out.

external audit, going concern assessment, auditor's reporting, analytical procedures, unstable companies

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