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.

Final assignment for Bachelor Degree in Business Administration,Mid Sweden University in ÖstersundSpring term 2008Title: Abolishment of statutory audit ? a qualitative research on banks attitude when credit rating small businessesAuthor: Rima Harouki, Carina HoffmannSupervisor: Anna-Maria JanssonBackground & problem: In Sweden the statutory audit has been mandatory for every corporation since 1983. With the membership in European Union it became possible to allow exception from statutory audit for small businesses, according to the fourth commission of EG. Today, in the European Union, there are few countries that still have statutory audit for smaller businesses, Sweden is one of them. There are discussions about whether Sweden should follow the trend of abolishment and an analysis management by the justice of the Supreme Court Bo Svensson was recently presented, which ended in the conclusion that statutory audit ought to be abolished.

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.

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.

ThepurposeofthisBachelor?sthesiswastoexaminetheinternalinformationmanagementatBoråsBoråsTMEABviaacasestudy.InordertoachievethispurposeanInformationAuditwasconducted.ThetheoreticalframeworkormodelfortheauditwasthatofBuchananandGibb.Dataforthestudywascollectedusingfocusgroupinterviewsandpolicydocuments.Theinterviewswereanalyzedwiththehelpofqualitativecontentanalysis.ThetheoreticalmodelofChoo?sInformationmanagementcyclewasusedtofurtherdescribetheorganizationsinternalinformationmanagement.Theresultsshowalackofpredeterminedroutinesandpoliciesregardinginformationmanagementandtheuseofinformationresources.Furthermore,theunitK:,FacebookandtheweeklyThursdaystaffmeetingwereidentifiedasthethreemostimportantresourcesforinternalinformationmanagement.Inaccordancewiththeinformationauditanorganizationdescriptionwascompletedusingpolicydocuments.Theauthoralsopresentsfoursuggestionsforactionplanswiththehelpoftheresultsofthecontentanalysis.Thestudyrevealedthattheinternalinformationmanagementwasrathergood.Thiswasduetotherathersmallsizeoftheorganizationandthatthestaffhadawellfunctioningcooperation.Thiscooperationisdescribedassomewhatproblematicasfrictionbetweensomedepartmentswasidentified..

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..

BackgroundA cost that lately has been discussed related to audit is the higher cost for auditing of small stock company. The question is if this cost is higher than the total utility of statutory audit and should it in that case be statutory. SRF says that the condition for small stock companies development is an abolishment of statutory audit. FAR consider that auditing is important for development and continuation.PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate whether there are any winners or losers among auditing firms and accounting firms in Sweden if the statutory audit for small stock companies abolish.MethodThe paper is both a qualitative and a quantitative study that is based on primary data made from an interview and a questionnaire investigation. ConclusionOur conclusion is that the big Winner is the accounting trade.

Background: Sweden has, since 1983, had a statutory audit for all joint-stock companies. However, according to EG?s fourth corporation directive, member countries can decide on their own if this applies for small joint-stock companies. An investigation was launched in the fall of 2006 to form an opinion on the importance of the audit reporting by law and what an abolishment of this rule would mean for small joint-stock companies. Critics are claiming that the cost of audit for small companies is exceeding the cause in these micro companies.Audit is regulated by Swedish translation (RS) of International Standards on Auditing (ISA) and is to be applied in all companies comprised by the statutory audit.

Background and Problem: The lack of auditor independence is discussed being oneof the reasons to scandals such as Enron and HQ. A pricing strategy that has beendebated impairing auditor independence is low balling. To win a new client in atender process, audit firms supposedly offer an audit fee below cost and then increasethe fee the following years to recover the initial loss. The auditors? future financialinterest in the company due to the initial loss is by some believed to impair auditorindependence, which makes low balling in Sweden a relevant phenomenon to study.Aim of study: This thesis aims to explain if low balling exists on the Swedish auditmarket and if the size of companies affects the results of low balling.Methodology: To achieve the purpose of this thesis, a statistical study wasconducted.

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.

The question of the mandatory audits be or not be has been investigated thoroughly in recent years. Theresult is that the audit obligation in all likelihood will be voluntary for 96 percent of all of Sweden´slimited companies in the summer of 2010. The new draft law gives the accountant the opportunity towork both as an accountant and consultant. The investigation in this script works with the question"Which services the owner-managed companies, which in future not will be forced to audit, demandfrom an accounting firm in the suspension of the mandatory audit?" This will take the investigation outby a quantitative study through questionnaires distributed to 40 limited companies.

Background & Problem: The Statutory audit was initiated in the beginning of 1983 with the argument that it had a preventative affect against economic crimes. It is discussed whether the statutory audit should be abolished considering it brings major costs for small limited companies, also there are discussions however easing the regulation for these companies. What effect would it impose for the preventative work against economic crimes if the statutory audit is abolished?Purpose: The purpose with this study is to learn how an abolishment of the statutory audit among so called micro businesses will affect authorities? preventive work against the economic crimes.Demarcate: The study is demarcated to comprise only authorities that work with preventing economic crimes with help of the statutory audit and that will be affected of an possible abolishment, such as the Swedish Tax Office (Skatteverket) and the Swedish National Economic Crimes Bureau (Ekobrottsmynigheten).Methodology: The research is based on a qualitative approach with personal interviews with two representatives from each authority. The gathering of data has been done by researching literature and databases.Conclusions: The result shows that the statutory audit is significant for the authorities and their preventive work.

In today's society there is tougher climate both financially and time wise. Accountants working under tight deadlines leading to the compromise between quality and quantity in the audit process and them therefor are being guilty of so-called reduced audit quality, RAQ. Reduced audit quality involves intentional actions designed to somehow reduce the evidence contained in the audit. We examine in this study the impact of time budget pressure (TBP), underreporting of time (URT), ethical organizational culture and charismatic leadership has on the frequency of RAQ.Previous research has already shown that there are clear links between TBP and RAQ, between URT and RAQ and between ethical culture in organizations and audit quality available. Five hypotheses were designed to the study.

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.