Key audit matters versus financial indicators: consistent or contradictory?

The ISA 700 (Revised) Forming an Opinion and Reporting on Financial Statements has mandated the independent auditors to communicate key audit matters of the audited financial statements to enhance the value of the auditor’s reports. This study aims to examine whether the key audit matters identified...

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Main Authors: Lee, Wei Min, Phua, Lian Kee
Format: Conference or Workshop Item
Language:English
Published: 2018
Subjects:
Online Access:https://repo.uum.edu.my/id/eprint/26068/1/ICAS%202018%2058%2065.pdf
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author Lee, Wei Min
Phua, Lian Kee
author_facet Lee, Wei Min
Phua, Lian Kee
author_sort Lee, Wei Min
collection UUM
description The ISA 700 (Revised) Forming an Opinion and Reporting on Financial Statements has mandated the independent auditors to communicate key audit matters of the audited financial statements to enhance the value of the auditor’s reports. This study aims to examine whether the key audit matters identified by the independent auditors are in line with the financial performance indicators derived from the financial information provided in the financial statements. The study uses secondary data obtained from the independent auditor’s report and Datastream database. The key audit matters tested in this study are revenue recognition, trade receivable, and inventory issues which are found to be frequently reported in the independent auditor’s report. The key audit matters are categorized into groups. T-test is done to analyse the difference in mean of financial ratios between the group that was identified to have key audit matter and otherwise. The result shows significant difference in mean of certain financial ratios between the groups. We found that the key audit matter disclosed is in line with the financial performance indicators. This is supported by the evidence that those firms identified to have trade receivable issue as key audit matter by the independent auditor also show poor performance on average collection period and total asset turnover. On the other hand, the key audit matter related to significant judgements by the auditors in areas of higher assessed risk of material misstatement did not reflect on financial performance indicators. The firms that suffered from revenue recognition and inventory issues performed better according to the financial ratio. The findings of this study provide evidence that the identified key audit matter need to be interpreted according to the nature of issues as there are mixed relationship observed between key audit matters and financial indicators.
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spelling uum-260682019-05-21T01:09:19Z https://repo.uum.edu.my/id/eprint/26068/ Key audit matters versus financial indicators: consistent or contradictory? Lee, Wei Min Phua, Lian Kee HF5601 Accounting The ISA 700 (Revised) Forming an Opinion and Reporting on Financial Statements has mandated the independent auditors to communicate key audit matters of the audited financial statements to enhance the value of the auditor’s reports. This study aims to examine whether the key audit matters identified by the independent auditors are in line with the financial performance indicators derived from the financial information provided in the financial statements. The study uses secondary data obtained from the independent auditor’s report and Datastream database. The key audit matters tested in this study are revenue recognition, trade receivable, and inventory issues which are found to be frequently reported in the independent auditor’s report. The key audit matters are categorized into groups. T-test is done to analyse the difference in mean of financial ratios between the group that was identified to have key audit matter and otherwise. The result shows significant difference in mean of certain financial ratios between the groups. We found that the key audit matter disclosed is in line with the financial performance indicators. This is supported by the evidence that those firms identified to have trade receivable issue as key audit matter by the independent auditor also show poor performance on average collection period and total asset turnover. On the other hand, the key audit matter related to significant judgements by the auditors in areas of higher assessed risk of material misstatement did not reflect on financial performance indicators. The firms that suffered from revenue recognition and inventory issues performed better according to the financial ratio. The findings of this study provide evidence that the identified key audit matter need to be interpreted according to the nature of issues as there are mixed relationship observed between key audit matters and financial indicators. 2018 Conference or Workshop Item PeerReviewed application/pdf en https://repo.uum.edu.my/id/eprint/26068/1/ICAS%202018%2058%2065.pdf Lee, Wei Min and Phua, Lian Kee (2018) Key audit matters versus financial indicators: consistent or contradictory? In: 5th International Conference on Accounting Studies (ICAS 2018), 16-17 October 2018,, Penang, Malaysia. http://icas.my/index.php/proceedings/8-icas-2018-proceedings
spellingShingle HF5601 Accounting
Lee, Wei Min
Phua, Lian Kee
Key audit matters versus financial indicators: consistent or contradictory?
title Key audit matters versus financial indicators: consistent or contradictory?
title_full Key audit matters versus financial indicators: consistent or contradictory?
title_fullStr Key audit matters versus financial indicators: consistent or contradictory?
title_full_unstemmed Key audit matters versus financial indicators: consistent or contradictory?
title_short Key audit matters versus financial indicators: consistent or contradictory?
title_sort key audit matters versus financial indicators consistent or contradictory
topic HF5601 Accounting
url https://repo.uum.edu.my/id/eprint/26068/1/ICAS%202018%2058%2065.pdf
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