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.

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.

Background: The environment and the design of auditing regulation can vary significantly between countries, which can affect the form, content and quality of the audit report. The purpose of the International Standards on Auditing, ISA, is to facilitate the work for auditors on an international basis. Sweden today follows the RS 600 which is based on ISA 600, which contains standards for when an auditor use work performed by other auditor. In October 2007, came a revised and redrafted version of ISA 600 that will be enforced in Sweden in the audit of the financial year beginning on 1 January 2011. To what degree the new requirements will affect the group audit is clearly dependent on how the reporting, evaluation and instructions between the group auditor and other auditor has been carried out previously.Aim: The aim with this paper is to explain the reporting between the group auditor and other auditor in an international corporate group.

The modern auditor is, because of an increased complexity, dependent on the use of experts. Simultaneously different scandals have occurred where the auditor in fact have been using experts. Although the auditor is using an expert, the auditor alone is responsible for the statement that the expert makes. Research simultaneously indicates that the auditor?s use of experts is a difficult task.

Title: The auditor?s recommendations to small businesses in the choice of K2 and K3Authors: Christopher Dimovski and Dennis Carlsson Published: Spring 2014 Background: The background of this study is the introduction of the new K-regulations. For small businesses, there is a possibility to choose between the rule-based K2 and the principal-based K3. It becomes mandatory to apply the K-regulations from 2014. We want with this study understand and explain the significance of the auditor and its recommendations to small businesses in the choice between K2 and K3. Aim: The aim of this study is to describe how the auditor makes recommendations to small businesses in the choice between K2 and K3 and through that create an understanding of what influence the auditor have when it makes recommendations and at the end contribute to the building of models. Formulation of problem: How can we understand and explain the auditor?s recommendations to small businesses in the choice of K2 and K3?Methodology: We have used a qualitative method where we have interview eight auditors.

On the 1st of November 2010, the statutory audit was abolished for small limited companies. The amendment of the abolished statutory audit includes smaller private limited companies that for two years does not exceed more than one of the two following limits: net revenue of three million kronor, total assets of one and one half million kronor and three employees. The principal rule of chapter 9 section 1 Companies Act remains that a limited company should have at least one auditor. For limited companies included of the amendment has a opportunity to choose bokslutsrapporten instead of the auditor?s report as a proof of quality of the accounting and the financial reporting.

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.

Auditing has long existed and it was in 1899 that the first Swedish organization for accountants SRS, Swedish Audit Society, was created and in 1923 that FAR, Association of Chartered Accountants, was formed. It was after the Kreuger crash in the 1930s that authorized auditors had their breakthrough. After the crash the accounting profession has endured fierce criticism when the audit was flawed and it was during this period that authorized auditors became more widespread, the concept was developed independently and the importance of auditor independence became evident.We have in our paper therefore chosen to focus on auditor independence and to make that it requires the independence to relate to something. Therefore we have chosen to focus on the interaction between the auditor and the client. To explain what independence means we have used the analysis model, the expectation gap and communication, and explain what the audit entails and what tasks the auditor has.

The purpose of this study explains the relationship between corporate governance and the auditor's role in Swedish family firms with the definitions micro, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and how this relationship is affected by the firms strategy. The study is based on a survey sent out to 3000 Swedish SMEs, of which 280 responses from family firms could be used. Our findings showed that the auditor in the family firms didn?t have a specific role or contributed added value to the firm, and that the strategy didn?t affect the outcome. Furthermore, we found correlation between the perceptions of the auditor's role and added value depending on the family firms type of corporate governance.

We have performed a historical research, trying to establish the auditing conditions, in terms of adjustments over time. Our purpose with this essay was to demonstrate the facts behind the independence of the auditor, and hopefully give the reader some new information.Our questions at issue were: What in the debate, regarding the independence of the auditor, in concern of the scandals, is most relevant each decade?Witch aftermath has influenced the regulation regarding the independence of the auditor?What we thought was the best way to answer this question was to study a large amount of journals according to the current decade, since 1930 and forward. The journals presented different persons opinions regarding the scandals, and we used them as an instrument to analyse the regulations and after-effects of the scandals.Our conclusion is that in purpose to make the auditor independent, the debate among competent and well-informed people in the line of business has, through the decades, frequently recurred to strive towards a more homogenous auditing..

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.

That an auditor brings good quality to the work he is performing is of great importance, not only for the company in question but also for its stakeholders. The information that the company disclose gets more credibility because of the auditor quality assurance. That the auditor tenure would affect the quality has been researched with different results, dependent on the legislation in the current country or region. In this paper we study how audit quality is affected of the audit tenure in Sweden. Based on research made in Belgium we have formulated hypothesis with factors that can affect the audit quality.

This dissertation discusses the preparations companies do when their auditor is about to visit them. We wanted to investigate if companies do some form of preparations with the intense of trying to influence the auditor in an, for the company, advantageous way. The purpose was to be fulfilled through the deductive process of theorization and from the gathering of empirical and the analysis of this data. We decided that a multiple case study would be the best approach for us, as we wanted to undertake a greater number of interviews than is normally done in a case study. The result from our study showed that auditors think that information from a company is more reliable, if its documentation is neatly kept, or if the relationship between the auditor and the company is good.

Background: Media has for a long time been reporting about the audit industry, often focusing on so-called auditing scandals. Economic journalism has grown stronger, the corporations are given more and more power in society and the public interest is increasing. We intend to examine how mass media affects the expectations gap and how the auditing firms operate strengthening the society?s confidence in the industry after mass medial exploitation. We also want to investigate whether the relatively new phenomenon social media is affecting the auditing firms and industry?s external communication, as well as what consequences negative publicity may have for the individual auditor.Aim: The aim of the study is to create an understanding of the audit industry?s relation to the media as well as to describe and analyze how mass media?s coverage is affecting the audit industry, auditing firms as well as the individual auditor.

This study investigates whether auditors affect the tendency to report correct taxes for small companies. Since November 2010 the smallest companies in Sweden are no longer obliged by law to have an appointed auditor to perform the former yearly audit. The auditor shall during the audit, amongst other tasks, investigate whether the audited companies follow Swedish law, and report them if they do not. The presence of the auditor might influence the actions of companies to act according to law, and reduce errors in the reporting. Errors regarding tax reporting will result in a revised tax decision if detected by The Swedish Tax Agency.