Improving Audit Reports: A Consensus between Auditors and Users

Estibaliz Goicoechea, Fernando Gómez-Bezares and José Vicente Ugarte
Additional contact information
Estibaliz Goicoechea: Department of Finance and Economics, University of Deusto, Avenida de las Universidades, 24, 48007 Bilbao, Spain
Fernando Gómez-Bezares: Department of Finance and Economics, University of Deusto, Avenida de las Universidades, 24, 48007 Bilbao, Spain
José Vicente Ugarte: Department of Finance and Economics, University of Deusto, Avenida de las Universidades, 24, 48007 Bilbao, Spain

IJFS, 2021, vol. 9, issue 2, 1-25

Abstract: Audit reports represent the only information stakeholders have about conducted audits and they are a key instrument used in economic and financial decisions. Improving audit reports should be a priority of regulators and auditors. The authors solicited perceptions from 212 experienced auditors and financial report users about the value of audit reports and ways to improve their format and content. An analysis of the responses suggests that adding information on audits (such as auditor’s responsibility about fraud) and on annual accounts and client’s information systems, without significant changes in the format, would improve the decision usefulness of audit reports. The growing sophistication of markets and reporting standards requires new information in audit reports, such as auditors’ conclusions about management’s estimates in annual accounts. The study is useful to regulators, auditors’ corporations, academics, and users and contributes to the current audit literature by providing evidence on consensus between auditors and users with regard to the format and content of audit reports.

Keywords: audit report; information value for decision making; consensus between auditors and users (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F2 F3 F41 F42 G1 G2 G3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7072/9/2/25/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7072/9/2/25/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijfss:v:9:y:2021:i:2:p:25-:d:546098

Access Statistics for this article

IJFS is currently edited by Ms. Hannah Lu

More articles in IJFS from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().