Why Good Accountants Do Bad Audits Essay

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Stacey Kay O. Fortuna 9:00 – 12:00, TTH November 29, 2011
Why Good Accountants Do Bad Audits The Article on Why Good Accountants Do Bad Audits specifies the different reasons why accountants and auditors have taken part – consciously and unconsciously – in different accounting scandals. The signing of the Sarbanes – Oxley Act of 2002 wishes to achieve corporate accountability. But the signing of this act doesn’t guarantee that accountants and auditors will not feed on their unconscious self – serving bias. Unconscious bias, unlike conscious corruption, would be hard to prove to court and serve jail time. That’s why as accountants and auditors who want to restore the confidence of the public in the accounting profession, we should go …show more content…
Knowing that your salary and your job is at stake whenever you audit a company and give your opinion, you would most likely tell your client the most positive things about their company even if in reality, they aren’t doing so well. It may be because though, some companies want to hear your opinion, they like you to tell them what they want to hear. And if you don’t, they wouldn’t hire you as their auditor again. Which I think is wrong. The accounting profession exists not to tell their clients what they want to hear, but what they need to hear, whether it’s good or bad. Clients have to respect the opinions of their auditors, simply because they are there for a reason, which is to provide assurance that the financial statements of the company are fair and correct, and give an opinion on topics clients wished to consult. I have learned in class that auditors need 2 important traits: Competence and Independence. To be both, auditors and accountants in general need to take careful steps in making their judgments and opinions and make sure that their conclusions are objective, unbiased and fair. But being both competent and independent is not easy. In the previous week, the class has presented different articles about auditing. Mostly were set in the Philippines and involved fraud. It is evident that there are some people among us who have gotten away with fraud,
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