Background and problem discussion: In recent years, the auditing profession has attracted attention due to a number of scandals. A misunderstanding that stakeholders have in common is that they believe that a clean audit report is a guarantee of a company's survival. The stakeholders argue that the pure audit report must ensure that the company's accounts are correctly executed and do not contain material errors. Earlier research shows that creditors have too high expectations of the auditor's obligations and responsibilities in relation to the auditor's duties according to laws and standards. The high expectations can give rise to serious consequences on the financial market if it wants to be bad, which in turn can contribute to the confidence in the auditing profession deteriorating. Purpose: The purpose of the study is to examine whether creditors have higher expectations on the requirements that the auditors must meet and whether the audit report is still a topical document as a basis for today's credit decision. Methodology: This study is based on existing literature and partly through both quantitative and qualitative methods in the form of interviews and questionnaires. The survey aims to investigate whether there is an expectation gap. In the interviews with creditors, it is examined whether the audit report has a significant role in lending. Theoretical perspectives:The theoretical frame of reference consists of relevant laws and standards in the audit area. It also consists of literature regarding the expectation gap and the audit report's significance as well as the credit granting process. Empirical foundation: The empirical study consists of a questionnaire survey that was answered by various creditors from the four major banks in Sweden regarding the auditor's role and audit. The empire also consists of interviews with creditors regarding the significance of the audit report inlending process. Analysis and Conclusions: Based on the data obtained in this study, the analysis leads to the following conclusions: there is an expectation gap between creditors and auditors regarding the extent of the auditor ́s work and responsibilities. Furthermore, the study also shows that an audit report does have a significant role, but at the same time it has an ambiguous role in credit decisionmaking.

Digitalization is a fast-paced phenomenon that is recognized to be of importance for the auditing profession. Research whether digitalization affects the auditor’s work process and what further impacts it has on the audit risk, is in a national context explored within a limited area. That contributed to identify the study's research question: How does digitalization affect the auditor's work process during the audit process and how does it impact the audit risk? In order to answer the research question, a qualitative study consisting of interviews with auditors at audit firms within the Big Four, was conducted. The findings of this study show that the digital progress has a positive impact on the work process due to increased efficiency where accessibility to information has increased and the need for the physical meeting with the client while gathering information has decreased. The audit process can also be carried out with safer samples by using various digital tools, which can reduce the audit risk due improved priority systems. Furthermore, the result shows that the ongoing digitalization has increased the requirements of auditor’s IT knowledge. It also enables a more automated process, which leads to a reduction of certain tasks. Automatized processes tend on the one hand lead to reduced understanding of the work, which may affect the audit risk negative if significant deviations may not be detected and on the other hand, an easier identification of deviations by using automated systems which can contribute to a reduced risk. / Revisionsyrket har under de senaste åren genomgått stora förändringar vilket har inneburit en omstrukturering av revisorns arbete. En av de betydande faktorer som bidragit till denna förändring, är den digitala utveckling som har tagit fart och i framtiden förutspås accelerera ytterligare. Forskning om huruvida digitaliseringen påverkar revision och vilka vidare effekter detta får för revisionsrisken, är nationellt sett utforskat inom ett begränsat område. Med detta som utgångspunkt, formulerades studiens forskningsfråga enligt följande: Hur påverkar digitaliseringen revisorns arbetsmetodik vid revisionsprocessen och vilka effekter får det för revisionsrisken? För att besvara studiens frågeställning, genomfördes en kvalitativ studie bestående av intervjuer med dels auktoriserade revisorer och dels revisorsassistenter på revisionsbyråer inom Big Four. Studiens slutsatser visar att den digitala utvecklingen har bidragit till en mer effektiviserad arbetsmetodik där tillgängligheten till information har ökat och behovet av det fysiska mötet mellan revisor och klient vid informationsinhämtning har minskat. Revisorns granskningsarbete kan enligt studien, med hjälp av olika digitala verktyg, genomföras med säkrare stickprov vilket kan ge en minskad revisionsrisk där väsentliga avvikelser enklare upptäcks till följd av förbättrade prioriteringssystem. Studien visar även att det i takt med digitaliseringen ställs högre krav på revisorernas IT-kompetens vid utförandet av arbetet och att revisorns arbetsmetodik blir alltmer automatiserad. En mer automatiserad arbetsmetodik tenderar däremot att leda till en minskad förståelse för arbetet vilket kan få effekter för revisionsrisken då väsentliga felaktigheter riskerar att inte upptäckas.

This paper explains what recognition the auditor has of theoretical judgment and decision making subjects surrounding the audit process. The auditors’ judgment and decision making skills seem to be more challenged when it comes to estimating their clients’ valuations. Therefore, the audit process of fair value measures (FVM) is used to charterer the recognition more clearly. Attention to this topic is warranted for several reasons. First, FVM was implemented on the Swedish market in 2005 and is relatively recent to Swedish auditors. Second, to our knowledge no similar study, regarding the Swedish audit firms, has been conducted within this area. Third, the evidence, drawn from previous research, of what recognition the auditors have of the theoretical judgment and decision making subjects seem to be more indirect than direct and we also extend the previous research. We find, through semi-structured interviews with employees of the ‘Big four’, that both judgment and decision making are acknowledged as possible issues. However, we also find that certain areas within these two categories are unrecognized to be of immediate concern.

There have been significant advances in the information systems (IS) literature about the business value that can be realized through information technology (IT) investments and the mechanisms through which IT creates different facets of business value. We identify three important gaps in understanding the literature on IT business value. First, it is unclear how risk arising from deficiencies in a firm’s information environment, along with internal and external contextual factors, affects a firm’s IT implementation choices. Second, it is unclear how IT resources in a focal domain need to be combined with knowledge resources in the same domain and IT resources in other domains to develop process capabilities and create process-level benefits. Third, it is unclear what risks IT-enabled process innovations create for different process stakeholders and what controls can be applied to mitigate these risks. My dissertation addresses the above three gaps in three essays. The first essay examines the influence of a firm’s information risk on its prioritization of accounting enterprise systems (AES) relative to complementary enterprise systems and the moderation of this relationship by the weaknesses of internal controls and environmental uncertainty characteristics. The second essay focuses on the impact of AES implementation on a firm’s internal controls process, and the complementary roles of managerial competence and enterprise systems implemented in other domains related to the internal controls process of the firm. The final essay explores the risk factors that can arise for buyers and suppliers due to the use of reverse auctions, and the controls that can be applied to mitigate the key risk factors. In terms of research methods, the first two essays apply econometric analysis to panel datasets constructed from multiple sources and the third essay uses a combination of Delphi studies and semi-structured interviews. Collectively, the essays advance our understanding of (1) the factors underlying a firm’s prioritization of IT investment choices; (2) the mechanisms through which IT resources, in combination with human expertise, create business value; and (3) the risks introduced for different stakeholders by the adoption of IT-enabled process innovations and the controls that can be used to effectively mitigate them.

Sammanfattning Titel: Revisionens digitala transformering ställer nya krav på utförandet Författare: Johan Antonsson, Lisa Haack och Johan Paulsson Program: Ekonomprogrammet - inriktning redovisning och ekonomistyrning Handledare: Petter Boye Institution: Ekonomihögskolan på Linnéuniversitetet i Kalmar   Inledning: I många år har digitaliseringen tagit allt mer plats i samhället, både hos individen men även företagen. Arbetsmarknaden har förändrats då arbeten försvunnit, men även nya uppkommit. Inom revisionsbranschen används nya affärssystem som ska underlätta för revisorn och därmed öka produktiviteten i arbetet. De nya affärssystemen kommer dock även med risker, de kan vara svårförståeliga, tidskrävande eller öppna upp för informationsstöld.   Syfte: Syftet med uppsatsen är att förklara hur digitaliseringen har påverkat arbetsmetodiken och på så vis hur riskerna inom revisionen förändrats. Vår förhoppning är att resultatet ska leda till att revisionsbranschen och revisionens intressenter får en ökad förståelse för ämnet.   Metod: Vi har använt en abduktiv ansats för att kunna öka förståelse för vårt ämne. För att kunna fördjupa oss i ämnet användes en kvalitativ metod där yrkessamma revisorer intervjuades för att vi skulle kunna uppfylla studiens syfte. Det motiveras även varför vi använt just de källor vi valt samt kritik mot dem.   Slutsats: Vi kom fram till att arbetsmetoden underlättas då nya analysverktyg hjälper revisorn i sitt vardagliga arbete. Det har lett fram till att revisionsriskerna sänkts då programmen kan stå för en stor del av arbetet och revisorn bara behöver lite manuell handpåläggning. Däremot förutsätter det att revisorn besitter en viss IT-kunskap för att revisionsriskerna ska säkerställas som minskade. Om IT-kunskapen inte finns förhöjs riskerna istället, vilket i framtiden kan bli ett mera aktuellt problem. Vi tror att kraven för att bli auktoriserad revisor kan komma behöva förändras. / Abstract Title: The audit's digital transformation requires new demands on the execution Authors: Johan Antonsson, Lisa Haack and Johan Paulsson Program: Ekonomprogrammet - inriktning redovisning och ekonomistyrning Advisor: Petter Boye Institution: Ekonomihögskolan på Linnéuniversitetet i Kalmar   Introduction: For several years digitalization has taken increasingly more room in the society, both for the individual and for the company. The labor market has changed because work has disappeared but new jobs have also been created. Within the accounting profession new ERP systems are being used to make the work easier for the auditor and thereby increase the productivity in the work. The new ERP systems comes with new risks, they can be hard to understand, time consuming or opening up avenues for information thefts.   Purpose: The purpose of this essay is to explain how digitalization has impacted the work process of auditers and how the risks have changed in the auditing process.   Method: We have used an abductive approach to be able to increase our understanding for the subject. To deepen our understanding of the subject we used a qualitative method where auditors were interviewed. We also discuss why we have chosen the sources we chose and critique against them.   Conclusion: Our conclusion is that the work process has become easier due to new analyzing programs which helps the auditor in their daily work. This has led to a decrease in auditing risk because the programs can do a lot of the work and the auditor only need to do some of the manual work. However, this requires that the auditor possess some IT knowledge, otherwise the auditing risk can´t be ensured to be decreased. If the IT knowledge doesn´t exist the risks will increase instead, which in the future might become a more important problem. We believe that the qualifications required to become an authorized auditor may need to change for the future.

Legitimacy is about meeting society's expectations and as we live in a society that is constantly changing, the perception of what is legitimate or not is also changing. The main purpose of an auditor in today's society is to review financial reports and guarantee their quality. In recent years, technological developments have changed the profession of auditors and previous research shows that digitalization has made it easier for the auditors as certain parts of the audit process have been automated. The purpose of the study was to examine how AI in audit firms will affect the legitimacy of auditors. The focus has been on the audit companies' working process and how the process is going to change with the help of AI, and finally how the auditors believe this will affect the legitimacy of the audit companies. Qualitative interviews have been used on auditors, to be able to get into the depth and obtain personal thoughts from the respondents. The results of the study show that the introduction of AI will have a positive impact on the audit process since it is assumed that standardized and time-consuming tasks will be automated. Furthermore, this means that auditors will be able to perform more accurate analyzes and get more time over to the customers, which means that the audit companies are assumed to be able to increase their legitimacy. Therefore, the conclusion is that AI will help audit companies with their legitimacy in the future.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is reshaping how businesses, governments, organizations and individuals operate. Most businesses are now moving away from traditional systems of operation into employing and leveraging on technologies like AI to deliver superior goods and services to their clients. Today, there are calls for a shift from the traditional auditing techniques of sampling to the use of advanced technology with the capability to analyze all the operating activities of a business to improve audit quality. There is no better time for auditing to merge with AI than now as it is increasingly becoming too challenging for human auditors to analyze huge volumes of structured and unstructured data in various locations to gain the relevant financial and non-financial information that they may need to form their opinions. The purpose of this research was to examine the impact of AI on auditors’ skills and competencies, audit process and audit quality. The researchers used the qualitative research methodology and reviewed literature to identify gaps in the literature. Participants (practicing auditors) were interviewed to gather data for analysis. The findings from the empirical data concludes that AI has had a significant impact on auditors’ skills and competencies, with many respondents affirming that the core skills now needed by auditors is IT skills. Audit process and audit quality have also been positively affected by AI.

SYFTE:  Syftet med den här studien är att undersöka hur Covid-19 pandemin har påverkat revisionsprocessen samt revisionskvalitén. METOD: Studien utgår från en kvalitativ forskningsmetod, baserade på semistrukturerade intervjuer med sex revisorer från både små och stora revisionsbyråer.  SLUTSATS: Den slutsatsen som kan dras av pandemins påverkan på revisionsprocessen är att det inneburit extra granskningsåtgärder i och med det omställningsstöd och permitteringsstöd som har erbjudits företag. Detta har lett till att ytterligare granskningsmoment tillkommit vilket har påverkat revisorns riskbedömning. Studien ser ingen påverkan på revisionsarvodet och revisorersättning, dock har pandemin haft en påverkan på företagens fortlevnad, vilket har orsakat att fler företag haft ekonomiska svårigheter. Vidare finner denna studie inget samband mellan Covid-19 och revisorers arbetssätt, däremot har arbetet förändrats för nyanställda. Slutligen visar även studien att utbildningar påverkats negativt av pandemin men att det främst haft en påverkan på nyanställdas möjlighet att introduceras i arbetet. / PURPOSE: The purpose of this study is to investigate how the Covid-19 pandemic has affected the audit process and the audit quality. METHOD: This study followed a qualitative method, based on semi structured interviews with six auditors from small and large audit firms.  CONCLUSION: The conclusion that can be drawn from the pandemics impact on the auditing process is that it has entailed additional review measures because of the adjustment support and redundancy support that has been offered to companies. This had led to additional audit elements being added, which has affected the auditors risk assessment. This study shows no impact on audit fees and auditor remuneration however, the pandemic has had an impact on going concerns, which has caused more companies to have financial difficulties. Furthermore, this study finds no connection between Covid-19 and the auditors working methods, however, the work has changed for new employees. Finally, studies also show that education was negatively affected by the pandemic, but that it mainly affected new employees ability to be introduced to work.

Information och data är något som är värdefullt i de flesta organisationer. Idag finns det möjlighet att samla in och analysera stora mängder data, något som brukar benämnas Big data. Ifall materialet hanteras på ett korrekt sätt kan det leda till ett förbättrat beslutsfattande samt ökade insikter om kunden och marknaden. Bearbetning av Big data har möjliggjorts under de senaste åren genom ny teknik, men det är förknippat med höga kostnader vilket har medfört att små- och medelstora företag inte har tillräckligt med resurser för att implementera Big data- tekniker. Detta är något som i stor utsträckning även kan appliceras på revisionsbyråer. I studiens problemdiskussion diskuteras att trots de fördelar som Big data-tekniker och digitalisering innebär för revisionsbranschen, har utvecklingen varit långsam. Genom det utformades ett syfte, att undersöka hur digitaliseringen och Big data-tekniker påverkat den svenska revisionsbranschen.  Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka, analysera och beskriva hur implementeringen av Big data har och kommer att påverka revisorns arbetsprocess. Syftet är också att undersöka vilka fördelar och nackdelar som implementeringen har medfört för revisionsbyråer och det skedde genom en empirisk undersökning.  Den empiriska undersökningen är en fallstudie som består av sju stycken intervjuer med representanter från olika revisionsbyråer i Västra Sverige. Genom att använda sig av intervjuer har respondenterna haft möjlighet att berätta om sina egna erfarenheter utan störningsmoment. Det är en kvalitativ metod som har tillämpats och studien har utgångspunkt ur en deduktiv ansats. Det eftersom utgångspunkten kommer ifrån tidigare forskning samt teori som redan existerar om digitalisering, Big data och revisionsbranschen.  Resultatet av studien visar att de olika respondenterna gav liknande svar, dels kring hur deras revisionsprocess är utformad, men även om den digitala utvecklingen och Big data. Det är tre stycken byråer som idag använder sig utav Big data i begränsad omfattning och en av respondenterna hade ingen kunskap om konceptet alls. Samtliga respondenter anser att digitaliseringen inom revisionsbranschen kommer att bli ännu viktigare och spela en större roll i framtiden. Automatisering och standardisering är processer som respondenterna tror kommer att bli mer omfattande i framtiden inom revisionen.  I studiens slutsats framkommer det att digitaliseringen inom revisionsbranschen har utvecklats något långsamt jämfört med andra delar i samhället, men att det skett en stor utveckling under de senaste åren. De slutsatser som presenteras och som utgår ifrån studiens frågeställningar är att arbetsprocessen för revisorerna inte har påverkats av Big data än, då det fortfarande är ett relativt okänt begrepp. Framtidens revision kommer dock inte se ut som idag, utan att det kommer ske stora förändringar inom branschen kommande år. Arbetsprocesser kommer att bli mer effektiva samt att revisionen kommer att ha en högre kvalitet. / Information and data are something that is of value in most organizations. Today, there is theopportunity to collect and analyze large amounts of data, which usually goes by the term Bigdata. If the essential material is handled correctly, it may result in improved decision makingand increased insights about clients and the market. The use and processing of Big data hasbeen made possible in the recent years through new technology, but it is associated with highcosts which has resulted in that small and medium-sized companies don’t have the resourcesto implement Big data technologies. This means that larger and more established companieshave an advantage. Big data can also be widely applied to auditing firms. The study's problemdiscussion proves that despite the many benefits that Big data technologies and the digitizationcreate for the auditing industry, the development is slagging behind other industries. Therefore,the purpose of the study was designed to see how digitalization and Big Data technologies hasaffected the Swedish auditing industry.The purpose of this study is to investigate, analyze and describe how the implementation ofBig data has and future affect the auditors’ work process. The purpose is also to investigatewhich advantages and disadvantages the implementation has brought auditing firms and thatwill be examined through an empirical study.The empirical study is a case study that consists of seven interviews with representatives fromvarious auditing firms in Western Sweden. By using interviews, the respondents have theopportunity to describe their own experiences. The study is based on the qualitative method.The study has a deductive approach as the starting point comes from previous research andtheory that already exists about digitization, Big data and the auditing industry.The results of the study shows that the respondents gave somewhat similar answers to thequestions, mostly about their auditing process and how it's designed today. But also about theirdigital development and Big data. Three of the interviewed firms use Big data today, but onlyto a limited extent and one of the respondents had no idea what the concept Big datarepresented. However, all respondents believe that digitalization in the auditing industry willbecome even more important and play a greater role in the near future. Automation andstandardization are processes that the respondents believe will be more extensive in the futurewithin the auditing firms.The study's conclusion shows that digitalization in the auditing industry has been somewhatslow compared with other industries, but that there has been a great development in recentyears. The conclusions that are presented and which are based on the study's questions are thatthe work process for the auditors has not been affected by Big data yet, as it’s still a relativelyunknown concept. However, auditing in the future will not look like it does today, there will besome major changes in the industry in the upcoming years. The work processes will be moreefficient than today and the audit will be of a higher quality.

Inom revision anses personalen vara både den största resursen och kostnaden, därför är det väsentligt att använda denna kapacitet till fullo. Yrket använder styrverktyget tidsbudgetering vilket innebär att anställda i de olika uppdragen får tidsramar att förhålla sig till. Tidigare studier har fokuserat på seniora revisorer avseende tidsbudgetar med ett mer negativt perspektiv, medan denna studie intar en mer neutral ställning utifrån revisionsassistenters perspektiv. Syftet med studien är därför att bidra med kunskap gällande hur revisionsassistenter upplever att användandet av tidsbudgetering påverkar revisionen. I studien presenteras revisionsprocessen, Input-Process-Output (IPO) modellen samt tidsbudgetering som styrverktyg och hur det appliceras inom revisionen. Studiens syfte har undersökts genom tio kvalitativa intervjuer med revisionsassistenter som arbetat minst sex månader inom yrket. Respondenterna innefattar revisionsassistenter från både The Big Four och mindre byråer. Studiens resultat visar att revisionen påverkas både positivt och negativt av tidsbudgetering som styrverktyg. Vilken påverkan det har grundas på hur styrverktyget används och mängden arbete i förhållande till den bestämda tiden. De positiva konsekvenserna som studien identifierat är ökad effektivitet, snabbare utvecklingskurva, strukturering av arbetet samt motivation hos anställda. De negativa konsekvenserna som identifieras är stress, sämre välmående, underrapportering av tid, genvägar samt minskad noggrannhet. Vilka konsekvenser tidsbudgetering medför anses främst bero på vem som har kontrollen över styrverktyget samt om det är stramt eller flexibelt. Således visar studien att vikten av att använda styrverktyget på ett korrekt sätt är avgörande för hur det upplevs påverka revisionen. / Within auditing the staff can be regarded as the biggest resource as well as the biggest cost, therefore it is essential to use this capacity to the fullest. The profession uses time budgeting as a management tool, which means that the staff have time frames to which they must adjust to for the various assignments. Previous studies have had a focus on senior auditors regarding time budgeting with a more negative outlook, while this study holds a more neutral position from audit assistant’s perspectives. The aim of this study is therefore to contribute with knowledge regarding how audit assistants experience how the usage of time budgeting influences the audit. The study presents the audit process, Input-Output-Process (IPO) model as well as time budgeting as a management tool and how it is applied in audits. The aim of the study has been studied through ten qualitative interviews with audit assistants that have been working for a minimum of six months in the profession. The respondents include audit assistants from both The Big Four and other smaller firms. The conclusion of the study indicates that audits are affected both positively and negatively by time budgeting as a management tool. Which effect it has depended on how the management tool is used and how the amount of work is in relation to the time. The positive consequences that the study has identified are increased efficiency, faster development curve, structuring of the work and motivation of the staff. The negative consequences that have been identified are stress, decreased well-being, underreporting of time, shortcuts and less meticulousness. Which consequences time budgeting entails depends mainly on who controls the management tool and if it is tight or flexible. Therefore, the study indicates the importance of using the management tool in a correct way is crucial for how it is perceived to affect the audit.