Research Paper on:
Auditing Process and the External Auditor's Role

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
preparer and hopes for the best, there is more at stake when it comes to bookkeeping and accounting practice for firms. Everyone was shocked and horrified at what went on  at Enron. Its accounting firm was less than honest. It is hard to believe that so much fraud and error is intertwined with big business, but it is easy to  see that there are significant rewards in the form of much money for tweaking numbers a bit. However, misrepresenting a company or knowingly altering facts and figures is illegal. It  affects taxes, the way in which stake holders view a company and the way in which companies make decisions. While dishonesty is problematic, part of the problem is that those  in high places are simply negligent. Some recent corporate collapses can be traced to a lack of participation at the board level ("Who Audits," 2002). Such a disconnection may be  addressed at least in part by a properly managed and structured external audit process; such a process should require that the board receive reports and advice from external auditors  who do not respect managements interpretation of events (2002). A lack of any independent verification or external validation of management reporting appears to be a prevalent theme in almost  all of the recently profiled collapses (2002). In other words, even if there are problems within the company, firms can be saved by the external audit. Of course, that  may be too generous an observation. The external auditors can only do so much. What do they do and how does their role differ from that of the internal auditor?  An important difference between the two roles comes from the basic reason for obtaining the services in the first place (Richards, 2002). For external auditors, the driving force is