The aim of this thesis is clarification of the importace of financial statement audit, characterization of the auditor's procedure and presentation of a possible fulfillment of these theoretical outputs based on the financial statement audit of a real company.

The goal of this thesis is explanation of audit profession theoretically and practically. It focuses on audit process and its implementation in real audit practice. The thesis explains basic definitions of audit profession, it shows differences between external and internal audit and identifies subjects authorized to carry out audit work and their rights and obligations. It is also devoted to legal framework of audit profession. This thesis contains treatise on International Standards on Auditing (ISA). A great part of this thesis is devoted to audit procedures. Finally it offers transfer of requirements and knowledge in practice. The audit process is demonstrated on the Mechanics Ltd.

The main purpose of this thesis is an analysis of selected online stores which focus on selling bathroom products and equipment. The thesis is divided into theoretical and practical part. The theoretical part deals with basic aspects of web eshops in terms of technologies and trends. It is divided into the following parts: graphic design and web site design, visibility on the internet, SEO, communication - information, technical solutions, accessibility and eshop. These individual elements are the basis for creating an evaluation methodology, which will be used to assess selected eshops. The practical part contains its own assessment as a methodology. It evaluated a total of 11 selected eshops, one shop is assessed a detailed audit, it is a shop at www.bathshop.cz. Furthermore, all results are summarized and conclusions drawn from them, and recommendations. The main contribution of this thesis is a comprehensive comparison of selected eshops to eshop ww.bathshop.cz and making recommendations on the basis of the comparison.

The auditing profession is a popular career choice among business graduates, and the Big N firms hire large cohorts of audit assistants every year. The auditing profession is special in the way that it has a defined career ladder, as well as a high employee turnover rate. The hiring process involves contact both with the HR department and auditors from the operating business. Since the audit assistants are not expected to have great technical knowledge at the beginning of their employment, other things than the actual auditing skills must be tested during the hiring process.   In prior research, studies have been conducted from the perspective of the applicant, rather than the organizational perspective. There has been relatively little research on the recruitment of auditors, and most research has been conducted in another context than a Swedish one. The research question used for this thesis is: How do audit firms hire entry-level audit assistants, and what profile is desired by the HR department and the operating business?   The main purposes of this study are to explore the hiring process and what profile is desired, from both the HR department’s perspective and the operating business’ perspective. The study is qualitative, and the data was collected through semi-structured interviews with delegates from the largest audit firms in Sweden. The sample consisted of eleven informants including seven auditors and four recruiters.  The empirical findings suggest that the Big N firms in Sweden hire through a centralized HR-department, with a standardized process that is similar among all the firms. A lot of responsibility lies with the HR-department, but the auditors make the final determination if the applicant will fit into the group. The most important characteristics desired of an audit assistant are found to be social skills, team ability, and dedication, and these are assessed at the different steps of the hiring process. Finally, the findings suggest that the HR department and the delegates from the operating business of the HR firms agree on what profile they are looking for, however, there is no formal way of evaluating the hiring process in any of the firms. The contributions of this thesis can be of use for various actors, for example audit firms when developing their hiring strategies, regulatory authorities when discussing the development of the industry and educational bodies and students when preparing for a career within auditing. From an academic perspective, this study can be used as a point of departure for future research.

The aim of this thesis is to characterize the various procedures that the auditor performs during his work and describe the process of the financial statement and annual report audit of the particular company.

The challenges in human resource allocation drive the present project. Conducted at an office of the Workers' Compensation Board of British Columbia (the WCB), the project aims at developing a simulation model of claim management operations to facilitate decision-making in resource allocation. In this context, resource allocation refers to the alignment of staff to claims. The components of the problem include the number of staff required and the types of staff required, given targeted system performance. The volume of claims, the profile of claims, the Workers Compensation Act, the board's business guidelines and the board's operational targets all influence staffing requirement. It is far from straightforward to answer the following questions: what is the optimal level of staffing? What is the right mix of skills? And what is the proper alignment of staff with claims? How will the system perform given a certain staffing level? How will change in the profile of incoming claims influence staffing requirement? A discrete-event simulation model was developed as a decision support tool in this project. The model was used to evaluate several resource allocation scenarios. Simulation showed that timeliness measures such as time to decision and time to closure would improve with additional resources, but the improvement was not drastic. At the staffing level of 14, compared to the current level of 12, time to decision for unadjudicated claims would reduce by 6%. Simulation further showed that specialization of staff by claim type might have a negative impact on system performance measures, because economics of scale were compromised. Finally, simulation showed that if Site Visits, a required procedure for adjudicating claims related to Activity-Related Soft Tissue Diseases, could be conducted by dedicated personnel, time to decision for these claims might reduce by as high as 60%. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

M.Com. (Computer Auditing) / The objective of an independent audit of financial statements is to express an opinion on the fair presentation of the financial statements. The auditor should obtain sufficient audit evidence to enable him to draw conclusions to support the content of his report. The auditor should obtain an understanding of the entity's accounting system and related internal controls to assess their adequacy as a basis for the preparation of financial information and to assist in the designing of his audit procedures. If the auditor intends to rely on any internal controls, he should study and evaluate those controls. If a database system is used, it is logical that all the financial data reside in the database. In order for an auditor to express an opinion on the financial statements, he has to determine to what extent he can rely on the integrity of the financial data that resides in the database. The objective of this research was to identify the risks and controls present in a general database environment as well as those present in the Oracle? database management system environment, to develop a comparison table between these environments and to develop an Oracle? internal control questionnaire.

This thesis explores the question of the decentralization processes between institutions and other parties involved in auditing and monitoring of the structural funds of the EU. I evaluate the present functional relations of these subjects using document analysis. The thesis follows two levels of analysis, which are compared in the end. The first level concerns the general setting of the systems of relations between union bodies and member states. The second one presents specific situations in the operational program Prague Competitiveness. The thesis disproves the initial hypothesis and claim that the relations on the supranational level tend to be more deconcentrated than decentralized, whereas the system at the national level shows more decentralization characteristics in this specific case.

In recent years, the accounting profession has faced increased scrutiny because of scandals involving management fraud (e.g., Enron, WorldCom). In response, Statement on Auditing Standards (SAS) #99 has expanded auditors' responsibility for detecting fraud, requiring auditors to gather significantly more information in their assessment of fraud. In addition, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) will focus on fraud detection through their inspections of registered accounting firms. In light of the increased emphasis on auditors' responsibility for detecting fraud, public accounting firms face the challenge of improving their fraud detection process, including their assessment of management fraud risk. Decision aids are one way for auditors to improve their assessment of management fraud risk. In fact, several studies from the decision aid literature suggest that aids are useful tools for a variety of tasks, including fraud risk assessment. At the same time, another stream of the decision aid reliance literature, which looks at people's willingness to rely on decision aids, suggests that individuals tend to be reluctant to accept the output given by an aid. Thus, the primary focus of this paper is on uncovering factors that would encourage one to voluntarily use and rely upon a decision aid. Toward that end, 132 senior-level auditors participated in an experiment that examined how several factors (confidence, perceived usefulness, client size, and conformity pressure) affect decision aid usage and reliance. The results show that perceived usefulness and decision aid reliance are significantly related. Further, the results suggest that perceived usefulness affects reliance more than variables examined in prior studies (e.g., confidence). Finally, the results suggest that decision aid usage mediates the relationship between perceived usefulness and reliance. The results of the current study have important implications for research in both the information systems and decision aid reliance areas. First, the study shows that perceived usefulness, a significant construct from the technology acceptance model (TAM) literature, is also a significant factor in determining decision aid usage and reliance. Second, the study further delineates how certain factors affect decision aid reliance.

The South African public sector faces significant challenges that impact on its ability to deliver services to the public. There are several parties that can assist the public sector in addressing these challenges. One of these is the internal audit functions of government organisations. For internal auditing to support effectively the managements of the government organisations they serve, the internal audit function should be sufficiently capable. The questions remain as to whether South African public sector internal audit functions are sufficiently capable and how internal audit capability can be measured. The Institute of Internal Auditors Research Foundation published the Internal Audit Capability Model (IA-CM) in 2009. The main purpose of the model is to provide a capability self-assessment tool for public sector internal audit functions. This model could be used as a yardstick in measuring public sector internal audit capability within South Africa, should the elements and key process areas (KPAs) of the model be applicable to the South African context. This study therefore aims to determine whether the IA-CM can be applied within a South African context. The South African public sector, the role of internal auditing within the South African public sector as well as the IA-CM as a tool of measuring public sector internal audit capability were investigated. A literature review was conducted on these topics, as a foundation for the study. Specific data was obtained on each of the KPAs of the IA-CM through a case study design by selecting an appropriate South African national department and ranking the case against the KPAs of the IA-CM. The ranking was conducted based on a review of relevant documents and interviews with applicable internal audit and management staff and audit committee members of the selected case. The study concludes that 82.9% of the KPAs of the IA-CM appear to be applicable within a South African context and that, in essence, the model can be applied within a South African context. However, eight hindrances that may negatively affect the feasibility of implementing the remaining 17.1% of the KPAs or certain components of these KPA’s, have been also been identified. / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / lk2014 / Auditing / MCom / Unrestricted