The concept “source documents” is a familiar term with those involved in keeping accounting records or watch dogs of limited liability and public liability companies and organizations from time to item, most often on annual basis, the independent Auditors call to review the accounting records kept by their clients. This they do by studying and evaluating the internal control systems in the company. This approach makes it possible for lapses, discrepancies, deficiencies and bottlenecks to be discovered if any do exist.
However, most people do not really understand the role of the auditors in public practice. To the layman, it’s a matter of detecting for fraud, which is more or less a secondary object f audit.
This research has set out to review the role of the auditor in public practice, the statutory and regulatory frame work under which they operate and the procedures adopted in the course of their duties, to meet the standard required to them. This task has been carried out with a special reference to Orji Chukwu and co-chartered Accountants a relatively small firm of chartered accountants located at 57 chime Avenue new haven, Enugu
Chapter one of this work, takes a critical look at the background information relating to the concept of auditing and investigation procedures in auditing, while chapter two gives a detail tool of the concept of auditing and all other related issues under literature reviews
Chapter three, research methodologies, reviews the procedures used in carrying out the research, while chapter four gives details of data obtained during the research with brief comments on the facts that could be deduced there from.
Chapter five looks at the inferences drawing from the analysis of data obtained, while the 0last chapter summarizes the results of research, finding in more general items.
1.1 INTRODUCTION
RELEVANCE OF INVESTIGATION
Every business entity, be it profitable or non profitable, have goals and objectives for which they were established example, most liability companies are established for profit optimization and charitable or non-profit organizations, example, government parastatates reestablished to subsidize costs to the governed.
However, its pertinent to note here that whether upon profitable or non profitable basis, its relevant that accounting records must be maintained Accounting is broadly defined as a process of recording analyzing and interpreting at business transactions in such a systematic and concise manners as to give full and detailed explanation to related parties who are interested in the financial statement. In every business organizations, it’s the duty of the chief accountant to keep records of all business transactions of the organization. However if thus records must be kept, it must follow norms principles, conventions and standards et out by various professional accounting bodies. In Nigeria, the Nigeria accounting standard board (NASB) is in charge of this duty.
Subject to the foregoing, section 357 of the company and allied matters decree,. Makes it mandatory for every limited liability company to appoint an Auditor to examine its accounts.
This now brings us to the question, who is an auditor? With reference to Walter N. Bigg, he sees an auditor as a person appointed by the directors (Shareholder authorize the directors to appoint) of a company to examine its books of account and stake whether it gives a true and fair view of the financial position of the entity and also see that there is compliance with statute and that accounting standard are strictly adhered to. In the light of the above, the auditor should be a professional and used in the accounting field, with high integrity profile and must be a member of a recognized professional body and must be licensed to practice. In Nigeria today, the institute of chartered accountants Nigeria takes care of this. If the auditor as a professional is a ware of the fact that his work is relied upon by related third parties, he owes it a duty to the reasonable care and skill in the discharge of his duty so as not to expose
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