The roles of an Auditor in Discovering Illegal Acts Essay

The roles of an Auditor in Discovering Illegal Acts - Essay Example This essay discusses that when implementing SAS no. 99, auditors often find themselves in a complex arena of systematic approaches to detecting fraud. Most often, the auditing process fails due to barriers which escalate from the auditor’s ability to uncover fraud accurately. Such problems often involve inadequate characteristics of professionalism. Such barriers revolve around the auditor’s accounting profession of independent accounting with regard to experience, training, skills and education. Primarily, expectations gap form a complex barrier in the ability of an auditor to uncover frauds at costs that are reasonable. For instance, the actual practices that an auditor is capable of may be far away from the expectations of the stakeholders. In such cases, stakeholders presume auditors as being faults. More so, regulatory and legal impediments are barriers that auditors face. The present audits are also characterized by limits that guide the extent to which auditors c an uncover reasonably. The limitations are not often aligned with auditing standards for the methods of auditing are limited while the audit is constrained by cost. Furthermore, these barriers emanate from educational issues of the auditor. Education of the auditor will enable him or her to acquire skills and experience while he or she undergoes training in his or her profession. The vice versa cannot be true. More so, the communication between the auditor and the company’s management can be a substantial barrier especially when communication barriers come from the auditor’s side.... The Role Played by the Setting of Objectives in Auditing Planning for an audit process is highly significant for the success of the process as a whole. Setting of objectives prior to conducting an audit provides a clear framework that guides the audit process as it is in progress. First of all, setting of objectives places the auditor in a position of the person who inquires on fraud issues. The auditor acquires first hand knowledge given that he or she can get vital information from the internal workforce on the people who were involved in fraud. Ramos (35) asserts that; those people who have significant information on the individuals concealing and committing fraud, have always said that they would give out the information, but they were not asked. Hand in hand, the objectives enable the auditors to visualize risks as well as respond to them accordingly. This implies that; the setting of objectives creates a clear guideline for conducting the audit process, and it sums up to the su ccess of the audit process. Significant steps can be taken to ensure that the objectives of the audit are met consistently. Prior to the conduction of an audit, the auditors should have a proper internalization of fraud as an aspect. They should have the awareness and a better understanding of fraud. Besides, they should be familiar to risks that are attached to auditing and the necessary steps for mitigating them. For instance, auditors should have adequate information necessary for identifying the risks attached to misstatement of material as a result of fraud. They should also have the capacity of assessing those risks after post-evaluation of the entity’s controls and programs. More so, the auditors should be bold enough to have a timely response