Why We Need to Exercise Professional Judgment in Auditing

Chapter 4 – Data Interpretation from Grounded Theory

possibly recognize the rationale of the issues and take a course of proper action (Interviewee 13).

Chapter 4 – Data Interpretation from Grounded Theory

auditing are increasing (ICAS and FRC, 2016). There are many raising questions about the quality of auditing, its effectiveness, and the role of professional skepticism and judgment.

Audit is a fast-changing environment because the nature of financial reporting continues to evolve: more complex, more areas of judgment, and more qualitative disclosures (Schilder, 2013). Auditors, in the changing environment, may face with inexperienced circumstances or emerging situations. In coping with the challenges of the environment in which audits are conducted, auditors need to be capable of exercising professional judgement.

Our society, in general, and business environment, in particular, always changes and evolves new things, e.g., the emerging evolvement of new services and business activities. These new changes require our adaption for unexpected situations, then we need to judge, especially, in auditing (Interviewee 3).

• The insufficiency of existing applicable standards and regulations: Accounting and auditing standards, or applicable regulations sometimes are impossible to monitor specific empirical cases. For instance: there is no specific standard covering the transaction; there is a standard but no detailed guidance of how to deal with a specific execution in practice; or there is more than one alternative that possibly apply to the transaction. In those circumstances, auditors need to use professional judgment. In addition, standards or regulations are usually built from past cases. However, it is possible to occur new issues and unexperienced cases in practice. Thereby, auditors need to exercise professional judgment to manage new situations.

The applicable accounting and auditing standards are settled up from current business situations or past cases that only reflected past experience.

However, we need to adapt with new changes and unforeseen cases for emerging cases in the future. Because we cannot follow exactly the past rules for future cases, we need to judge to make appropriate decisions.

(Interviewee 18).

The exercise of professional judgment is compulsory to auditors since accounting and auditing standards are unable to give specific directions for all practical circumstances. Being an auditor, I need to judge the practical situations carefully to ensure the most appropriate treatment for specific cases (Interviewee 25).

• The amount of available information: The amount of available information that

Chapter 4 – Data Interpretation from Grounded Theory

auditors possibly attain is one of the reasons for the exercise of professional judgment by auditors. In case of having less information or a huge amount of information, auditors always need to exercise professional judgment.

If the necessary information is less or not available at the time of decision making, auditors need to judge in order to make appropriate decisions. For example, auditors usually need to apply professional judgment in audit planning to make audit strategy based on a little of initial information. Or, sometimes, while examining the provision or accrual accounts, because of the lacking of sufficient information, auditors need to judge in auditing of these accounts.

Sometimes, we need to use professional judgment to make a decision although we may not have sufficient information for the decision. It is possibly due to we cannot have that information, or we don’t have enough relevant information at the time of making decision. It means that we must make decisions even though we have little information. In those cases, e.g., in making an audit plan, professional judgment is compulsory and really meaningful. However, later, when we have more information, we need to revisit our initial judgment and revise the decision if necessary (Interviewee 7).

In audit planning, we cannot know all information, we need to have certain information and exercise judgment to make appropriate audit strategies (Interviewee 22).

In auditing of provision accounts, auditors usually need to apply professional judgment to verify the reasonableness of the provision methods or recorded amounts.

Judgment on provision accounts is an example for making judgment in case of lack of information. For instance, there is a provision of US$ 2 billion made by client according to a method. However, we don’t have specific guidance of the method. We need use accumulated knowledge and experience to examine and make judgment about the method. If we think the method is reasonable, we may agree with the provision amount. However, we may judge that the method is unreasonable, we may advise client to adjust the amount. In future, if we have more information about the provision, we may revisit the provision issue (Interviewee 25).

Chapter 4 – Data Interpretation from Grounded Theory

In contrast, when auditors must deal with a huge amount of information (e.g., a big data of transactions or accounts), they are unable to verify or examine all information but apply professional judgment to choose focused items. For example, auditors professionally judge which items are material or not, then focus on examining the material items. In that way, in dealing a big data, professional judgment helps auditors choose significant items to focus, thereby increasing audit efficiency and ensuring timely responses within tight deadlines.

When there is a lot of transactions or accounts, auditor need to make professional judgment in dealing with so much data. Auditors cannot examine or check all information they have, they use their professional judgment to focus on material accounts or transactions. Professional judgment helps audit perform appropriate and efficient tasks (Interviewee 8).

Therefore, professional judgment is necessary due to the amount of available information.

Professional judgment is compulsory for auditors to complete their tasks for all cases having very little information and having a huge amount of information.