In September 2008, a proposition to limit auditors? liability for statutory audit was launched by a Swedish Government official report. Auditors? legal liability in this respect has been joint and unlimited for more than 60 years in Sweden. By using a qualitative literature study method, this paper aims at discovering how the proposed change in legal liability affects the legitimacy of auditors in Sweden.

In today?s larger companies internal auditing is a common concept. For about twenty years ago companies? use of internal auditing took a turn from having been something popular to becoming more notorious. In this thesis we examine what might have caused that turn, We do this by looking at the vision and way of working for about twenty years ago and how the view of the area is today.

The purpose of this study is to describe and analyze how auditors are affected by quality controls and if audit practice changes because of quality controls. To fulfill the purpose of this study there has been interviews made with five auditors. The conclusion by this study is that the interviewed auditors work practices are affected by quality controls and that the extent and effect depends on the auditor and the office that the auditor works in. The auditors who worked as quality reviewers at the agencies where they are employed at, we felt that they were more secured in the response towards quality controls. This may be because they are quality reviewers themselves and they know what the quality control requires and what must be met to be approved.

AbstractThe control of quality standard ISO 9001 has made the internal audit to be experienced as police authority and paragraph control. Because of that, motivation for internal auditors is low. To counteract the experience, there is a possibility to integrate internal audit with improvements in company?s processes. Theory has shown that a qualified and competent auditor can provide information that can help the organization's managements to make the right decisions that will improve product quality and result in new customer contracts.An opportunity to observe an internal and external audit at one of the case companies gave rise to this study.

Auditor independence is a subject that has been discussed frequently over the past decade. The meaning of auditor independence is complex and contains both independence of mind and independence in appearance. The environment must perceive the auditor as independent if the audited information is to have any value for the users of the audited statements. The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine how auditors can manifest their independence.

The definition of an expectation gap is, when the local municipal politician and the audited apprehensions and expectations gets apart about what auditors are going to work with and what they are going to accomplish.Svenska Kommunförbundet writes in their publication Fullmäktige och revisionen (2004) that the communication between the auditors and the audited is important so the final result becomes great. Apart from the communication, the recurring information about auditing is important to increase the knowledge and understanding. Are there expectations on what the auditors are going to review and discover among the audited, when there probably are expectations from the inhabitants on the auditing. This leads us to our purpose of our essay which is to investigate and describe if there exist an expectation gap between the auditors and the social welfare boards in the primary municipality. The method we used to collect our data was a guided telephone interview with 66 persons.

AbstractThe control of quality standard ISO 9001 has made the internal audit to be experienced as police authority and paragraph control. Because of that, motivation for internal auditors is low. To counteract the experience, there is a possibility to integrate internal audit with improvements in company?s processes. Theory has shown that a qualified and competent auditor can provide information that can help the organization's managements to make the right decisions that will improve product quality and result in new customer contracts.An opportunity to observe an internal and external audit at one of the case companies gave rise to this study.

Law and regulations regulate the auditors? independence. An auditor should not only be independent in general, but independence in fact and independence in appearance. However, the regulations do not specifically describe how to act independence. It is the concerns of the auditor were he puts his limit for the independence.

Background: Small- and medium- sized businesses have during a long time had difficulties in raising long-term funding from external financiers, a reason for this is that these companies may have more information about their own business than the bank has. One way to reduce this problem is to hire a certified public auditor or a certified accounting consultant. Much has changed in recent years in the accounting profession. Mandatory audit has been abolished for small- and medium-sized businesses, which has led to major changes. Auditors are now not mandatory for these companies, which opens up the market for accounting consultant´s.

ABSTRACTThe auditor independence is constantly being questioned while discussing whether the auditor is really independent from the client. There are also factors threatening the auditor?s independency and decreasing the legitimacy towards the auditors. One example is the long-term relationship between the auditor and the client.The analysis model is the most useful for the auditor to control his independency. Former studies show that the auditor?s judgments about the threat to independence differed among the auditors.

Several industrial scandals, especially those about Enron and WorldCom, have lead to an intense debate about the independent audit and the independent auditor. A substantial part of the auditor?s income originates from counselling, and therefore the role of the auditor may be seen as double, and the auditor?s objectivity may be questioned. In the year of 2002, a new Auditors Act was legislated in Sweden. In the 21 § of the act, a model based on principles was introduced, to test the auditor independence in every single case.

Objectivity is often emphasized as one of the fundamental principles for the auditing profession and is also a requirement for preserving satisfactory professional practice. The multiple company scandals in the first decade of the 21st century have created distrust for auditors? capability to maintain objectivity. The purpose of this study is to contribute with a new way of thinking when it comes to the factors that affect objectivity. Earlier studies have indicated that personality factors may affect work performance in many different fields and this study is exploring the connection between separate personality factors, and the capability of less experienced auditors to maintain objectivity in the relationship with dominating and demanding clients.Data was collected through a survey that was divided into two separate parts where the first part measured the participant?s score on different personality factors, and the other part measured the participant?s score on perceived objectivity.

Since 1999 auditors have an obligation, according to 42-44 §§ aktiebolagslagen (2005:551), to report suspicions of crime. The obligation to report means that the auditor is legally obliged to report any suspicious economical crime potentially committed by the executive director or a member of the board to a district attorney. Prior to the enactment it was almost impossible for the auditor to report any criminal suspicion due to the professional confidentiality. According to Ekobrottsmyndigheten the number of crime suspicion reports filed by auditors has reduced by 50 percent in the Stockholm-region between 2006 and 2010. However, after the enactment crime suspicion reports increased successively each year.

The recent accounting scandals in large companies in both USA and Europe, such as Enron and Scandia, have led to a huge debate about the quality of financial reports approved by auditors who, at the same time, offer consultancy service to their audit clients. Many researchers and experts argued that there is a role conflict when an auditor offers consultancy service to audit clients. They argue that the main duty of an auditor is to verify the truthfulness of the company's financial statements. Giving consultancy service to the audit clients will impair the auditor's role to examine the company's books independently because of the economic bond between auditors and audit clients.As a result of the Enron scandal, the legislators in the USA have made restrictions to how auditors provide non-audit service to audit clients. However, the legislators in Sweden, unlike the US, did not choose to introduce such restrictions.

In 2010 mandatory audit was revoked for small and medium sized companies in Sweden. At the same time the authorization for accounting consultants was established with the aim of raising the knowledge and status of the profession. Even though The Swedish Companies Registration Office has discovered more errors in the accounting after the mandatory audit was eliminated, it especially concerns those companies who does not have neither an auditor or an accounting consultant. One of the reasons often mentioned to be audited is the Auditors role when it comes to lending decisions. Our empirical studie show that the auditors most important function, being unbiased, is not what is of greatest importance for the credit institutions.Instead it was professional skills, and for small and medium enterprises (SME) it was consulting they requested the most.