Energy awareness is growing among the Swedish population and a one­?to­?two-family dwelling can save energy. The purpose of this paper is to design a tool that helps these home owners reduce their energy costs.The paper develops a model that gives them an indication of how much energy they can save. For the majority of homeowners, the next step in the quest to reduce theirs is most likely an energy audit. Therefore, information to help home owners to get a good energy audit performed is included in the model.A prototype running the operating system iOS is created and validated against existing models, as well as an energy audit. .

Title: Audit teams ? what affects the efficiency?Authors: Petter Johansson and David RubinSupervisor: Andreas JanssonCourse: Dissertation Accounting, 4FE03E, 30 ECTS, Spring 2011.Key Words: Audit team, Efficiency, Team WorkBackground and problem: Theory and literature in the field of audit teams?efficiency are limited. The theory and literature that existed was not conducted inSwedish context. It was identified that no one had examined the factors thatinfluence the efficiency of the Swedish audit team's. Efficiency affects howresource-and cost-effective an auditing firm can be while the audit is performedwith quality and therefore it is of interest to be examined.Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to explore and explain what may affectSwedish audit teams? efficiency during the work processMethod: The thesis has been based on existing theory and literature to explainwhat affects audit teams? effectiveness.

Introduction:By insight in the company and by monitoring the management, the board has an important function in creating trust in governance of the company. Furthermore, the board reduces the asymmetry of information between the owners and the management, which also is the function of the auditor, by auditing how the board governs the company and the accounting. In case the board does not effectively monitor the management, the auditor has to extend its monitoring, which increases the owners agency costs through the audit fee. The board composition can affect how effectively the board practices the monitoringProblem: How is the audit fee affected by the board composition?Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explain how the board composition affects the audit fee.Method: The study uses a quantitative method, where the data was collected from the annual reports of 112 limited companies listed on the NASDAQ OMX Large and Mid Cap lists on January 2, 2012.

Background: The audit has not always been as it is today. The first law requiring auditing was legislated in the Companies Act 1895. Many events have taken place in the audit history; among them was the Krueger crash, which affected the auditing profession hard in Sweden. This led to new recommendations and laws that would save the profession. Because of the events in the past, there are many who question the audit profession and discussions have been held regarding the auditor's independence and objectivity.

In 1983 Sweden passed a law stating that all limited liability companies are to be included into a mandatory auditing system. According to the EEC, courts fourth amendment, each country has the right to decide whether to exclude a mandatory auditing system for smaller companies. Audit reports in Sweden are considered to be very important for the bank crediting system. Should this be eliminated, it would be more difficult for banks to trust an audit. The significance of calculated audits is questioned in regards to the banks accrediting system.

This study examines whether there is an association between the length of the client-auditor relationship and audit quality, using absolute unexpected accruals estimated by industry as a measure of audit quality based on a modified Jones model. The study is motivated by the proposal on mandatory audit firm rotation for publicly traded companies from the European Commission, which is based on the notion that longer auditor firm tenure creates a familiarity threat which reduces the audit quality. Both the relation between audit quality and auditor partner tenure and audit firm tenure is examined in this study, using multivariate regression controlling for auditor type (Big 4 versus non-Big 4), signing auditors (one versus two auditors), firm size, profitability, leverage and age. There is a significant negative relationship between audit quality and audit partner tenure when only companies employing Big 4 is tested, which indicate that auditors constrain managements extreme accounting measures with longer tenure. The results provide no significant evidence of an increase in the absolute unexpected accruals with audit firm tenure, when only Big 4 companies are tested.

Title: The dynamics of the Audit expectation gapIntroduction: The audit expectations gap is the difference that exists between what auditors and users of accounting information expects an independent auditor to do. Since the definition arose in 1974, much research has been done about the gap. What is relatively unexplored is how the gap changes over time within a country, and how it is affected by external events. This lack of knowledge has motivated this study.Problem: How has the audit expectation gap changed in Sweden, from the emergence of the definition until today? In which way have corporate scandals and legislative changes affected the gap?Purpose: The aim is to identify and create an understanding of how the audit expectation gap has changed in Sweden.

Title: The qualified audit report ? a study of Board of Director, Private Corporation and auditor?s impact.                      Seminar date: 31th of May, 2011Authors: Annika Jonasson & Emma SwanbergSupervisor: Andreas Jansson                Education: the Business Administration and Economics Programme      Course: Thesis, the Business, Administration and Economics Programme, 30 creditsKeywords: Qualified audit report, accounting, audit, auditor, board of directors private corporation, stakeholderBackground: It is important for the company's stakeholders to receive information what affects qualified audit report. The information is also important for the company?s management or owner in order to prevent qualified audit report. Board of directors (the ability to control the owners or management and provide critical resources), the management or owners (incentives to manipulate the annual report) and auditors (the ability to discover and report false financial statements) may have an impact why Swedish private corporations receiving qualified audit reports.  Purpose: The overall purpose is to examine why Swedish Private Corporation receives qualified audit reports.Methodology: In order to fulfill the purpose of our thesis a deductive approach is used.

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.

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.

This study is a semi-­structured, qualitative depth-­interview study investigating Swedish institutional investors' perception of the fact that companies purchase non-­audit services from its signing auditor and if they see this as a threat to auditor independence. The study focuses on independence in appearance rather than independence in fact. The study is based on the current media debate on auditor independence and aims to provide a deeper insight to enlighten legislators how users of audited financial information look at the problem. The study builds on agency theory's notion that there is an information asymmetry between management and shareholders, which the auditor is to reduce. The results show that Swedish institutional investors perceive that there is a threat to auditor independence when companies buy non­-audit services from its signing auditor.

Today all private corporations are obligated by statutory audit. The government of Sweden appointed an investigation to conclude if the audit should be statutory or not. The investigator presented on the third of April 2008 a report (SOU 2008:32) that suggests abolishment of the statutory audit for approximately 97 % of all private corporations in Sweden. This will result in certain effects on the banks credit rating because of the fact that the banks trust the audited accounts to have been audited by an independent audit.The most important in the banks credit rating are: personal judgement, business concept, business plan and repayment ability. The banks also use the private corporations audited accounts in its credit rating.We conducted a case study by interviewing four bank officials in different banks in Skövde and Tibro.

Introduction: 1 November 2010  came the amendment about the audit requirement into force. The amendment concerned only micro-enterprises. The most common form offinancing for micro-enterprises are bank loans, therefore the banks play a major role in the business and wellness of micro-enterprises.Purpose: Purpose of this paper is to examine if the credit assessment has been affected by the removal of the audit requirement for micro-enterprises.Method: This study will be conducted by a qualitative study in the form of interviews. Five interviews were conducted, with four respondents from the large banks and    one respondent from Almi Företagspartner.Conclusion: All respondents agreed that the audit is seen as a mark of quality, some lenders will continue to request it from the micro-enterprise while other lenders look at other factors such as ownership, relationship or business concept..

The purpose of this research is to examine the implications of the provisions in the Swedish Code of Corporate Governance (the Code) concerning auditor attestation of the internal control report. We will focus on how the auditors? augmented responsibilities will affect the efficiency in the audit process.Our research indicates that the main benefit from reviewing the internal control report is achieving more reliable internal controls, which results in greater prevention of misstatements in the financial statements. This will affect the efficiency in the audit process since the auditor can place more reliance on internal controls when performing audit procedures. This implies that the benefits of preventing misstatements could outweigh the efforts and resources spent on reviewing the internal control report..

This is a qualitative study about small auditing firms and their customer relationships with SMEs. It contains a total of eight interviews, two with audit firms and six with SME?s.The purpose of the study is to understand how small audit firms manage their customer relationships and if it exist any expectation gaps between the audit firm and the SME.One of the conclusions is that trust is fundamental and gets stronger over time; it is also linked with the personal relationship between the business owner and the auditor/accountant..