Toward An Auditing Philosophy (Part1)

UNIMAS Library

Ini merupakan ketikan dari buku yang berjudul "The Philosophy of Auditing" yang diterbitkan pada tahun 1961. Yang ditulis oleh R.K.Mautz, Ph.D, CPA (university Illinois) dan Hussein A. Sharaf, Ph.D (university of Cairo)  dimana ini diambil dari bab pertamanya.

This is an attempt to outline the theory of auditing. To some this may appears an unlikely if not an impossible task ; to others it may at  best seem futile. Many think of auditing as a completely pratical, as opposed to theoritical, subject .  To them, auditing is a series of practices and procedures, methods and techniques, a way of doing with little need for the explanations, descriptions, reconciliations, and arguments so frequently lumped together as “theory”.

It is out contention that there is a theory of auditing , that there exist a number of basic assumption and a body of integrated ideas, the understanding of which will be of direct assistance in the development and practice of the art of auditing. Further, it is our belief , which  we will attempt to support in the following pages, that an understanding of auditing theory can lead us to reasonable solutions of some of the most vexing problem facing auditors today.

Present Status of Auditing Theory.  Currently, there is very little available in the profesional literature  that can be described as auditing theory. Certainly there is little in auditing literature to compare with the wealth of material one finds on accounting theory. On reflection , one sees some thing incongruous in the existance of a profesional group drawing its status primarily from the practice of auditing , but having no perceptible body of theory to support that practice. Considerable attention is given to accounting theory-indeed there are certain works which may appropriately be described as “classic:-but there has been little concern with auditing theory . Its  is htis paradox which has encouraged us to investigate  the possibility of an integrated body of auditing theory.

To forestall the argument that discussions of auditing theory are lacking because there is no such theory, let us hasten to point out that this lack is easily explained in the historical development of auditing . we do not contemplate a lengthy digression on the history of auditing , but a few illustrations can be cited which indicate that auditing developed as a procedure of detailed checking, in which theory seemed neither necessary nor desirable , and that only recently has it outgrown that stage. Auditing came into existance as the offspring of law and custom with prescribed forms and procedures.

 

"They (the solla) correspond, as required by the rule derived from the Exchequer, leaf by leaf , page to page , almost line to line. The “probatum” , the mark of audit, has been affixed to the sum of every leaf on its second page, and in some cases, where the sum has been apparently corrected by a second audit , a second mark is affixed to the finally stated sum..."

Thus the early auditor was encouraged only to investigat correspondence the matter under investigation with a model or standard. This does not differ a great deal from the situation in Germany today.

The legal requirements instead of indicating a minimum standard of disclosure , have come to be accepted as “the” standard for the presentation of published statements.

There is little in the task of checking conformity with a given standard or requirement that leads one to question the nature of th auditor’s fundamental purposes limitations, and activity. As recently as 1942, a committee of english experts , in discussing the future of auditing in Britain, wrote, somewhat intemperately :

Attempts to persuade the accountancy profession to take a wider view of their public responsibilities have so far met with little success... there is  little or no evidence during the last twenty or twenty-five years to show that the professional accountant , qua professional accountant, has produced a single idea of value to industry or the State. He has merely ticked and cast and trusted in God.

 

This was written almost ten years after Cart-Saunders , in a  study of the  various professions in England , had criticized the professional groups rather severely for a lack of attention to theoritical study and research.

It is difficult to avoid the inference that the want of proper facilities for theoretical ttraining is in part responsible for the scanty interest displayed by accountants in the study of their craft. One of the advocates of education reform  from whom we have already qouted wold extend his proposals to cover a wider field. “there is  areal need”., he urges , “ in accountancy , for sustained academic study and research ..... But so far as I am aware, the Institute and Society have not directly concerned themselves with academic study of accountancy or research work.

In the United States, auditing has not been subjected to the type of influence which the Companies Act could scarcely do otherwise than exert in England. As American practice developed and differentiated itself more  and more from its British counterpart , an interest in matters of a theoretical nature appeared. For many years, practicing auditors have emphasized the reasons for the use of various procedures as well as the steps in the procedures themselves, the “why” as well as the “how” as it is so often described .  More than this is indeed , however , and more has been forthcoming. In recent years, bits and pieces of auditing theory have appeared in the professional literature. The differentiation of techniques , procedures, and principles, the recognition of standards, the attention given to the nature and classification of “evidental matter”, and the relationship of evidential matter to audit techniques may be cited as illustration.