The auditors’ client inquiry process
Abstract
The efficiency and the effectiveness of the audit depend in part on the efficiency and the effectiveness of the client inquiry process. This paper presents a model that helps auditors to understand the stages of the client inquiry process and the factors that influence its reliability. The model serves to illuminate the client inquiry process and thereby assist auditors in evaluating the evidence thus obtained. Our model is a multistage communication channel that connects reality, the client’s perception of reality, the client’s representation of reality, the auditor’s perception of reality, and the auditor’s representation of reality. Distortions of reality occur between adjacent stages as the result of the subjectivity, technical incompetence, untrustworthiness, and poor presentation skills of either the client or the auditor. We discuss our model in the context of the analytical review task.
Keywords
Citation
Comunale, C.L., Sexton, T.R. and Gara, S.C. (2003), "The auditors’ client inquiry process", Managerial Auditing Journal, Vol. 18 No. 2, pp. 128-133. https://doi.org/10.1108/02686900310455119
Publisher
:MCB UP Ltd
Copyright © 2003, MCB UP Limited