With the continuous improvement of China's marketization, the restrictions on the business activities of various economic entities will be gradually relaxed, which will inevitably put forward higher requirements for the professional judgment ability of audit practitioners, making the importance of audit professional judgment increasingly obvious.
First, the concept and characteristics of audit professional judgment
1, the concept of audit professional judgment
In the past twenty years, great progress has been made in the research of audit professional judgment abroad. In China, audit professional judgment is also becoming a hot topic in theoretical research. The academic description of audit professional judgment mainly includes the following contents:
(1) Audit professional judgment is a process in which auditors comprehensively consider all relevant aspects when making audit decisions. The wrong judgment of auditors will lead to inappropriate audit conclusions.
(2) Audit professional judgment is a perceptual knowledge formed in long-term business training practice, which is predictable due to the role of human brain.
(3) Audit professional judgment refers to the decision to choose from a variety of possible work plans by using the knowledge and experience of auditing and related disciplines.
(4) Audit professional judgment is a thinking process to determine whether the audited items have certain attributes. But so far, there is no accepted definition of the concept of audit professional judgment at home and abroad. The author believes that the following factors must be emphasized in the concept of audit professional judgment: first, the subjectivity of judgment, which is the essential attribute of audit professional judgment; The second is the universality of judgment, that is, audit professional judgment runs through the whole process of audit, which can be said to be everywhere. Third, the importance of judgment. The auditor's professional judgment not only obviously affects the efficiency and effect of audit, but also is one of the main signs of the auditor's professional level. Therefore, the author believes that the concept of professional judgment can be comprehensively and accurately grasped in the following description: audit professional judgment is an instinctive judgment based on auditors' professional knowledge and personal experience, which widely exists in the whole audit process and has a great influence on audit quality. Based on this definition, we can further analyze the characteristics of audit professional judgment.
2, the characteristics of audit professional judgment
(1) Audit professional judgment is greatly influenced by subjective factors.
As a way of thinking, judgment has a strong subjective color. Reflected in audit activities, personal factors such as auditor's knowledge, experience and even personality, habits and mentality will be brought into the process of audit professional judgment, thus affecting the result of audit professional judgment. For the same thing, due to the subjective factors of judges, the judgments made may be quite different.
Because of this, the professional judgment of audit puts forward higher requirements for the professional quality of judges. It requires auditors to have accounting, auditing, law and other related professional knowledge, and reach a certain level of proficiency. At the same time, auditors must also have rich practical experience and the ability to make correct judgments in the face of practical problems. For example, an experienced and alert auditor can quickly browse a page of records and immediately find abnormal things, and can also accurately point out problems. There is nothing incredible about this diagnosis. Auditors only use their own accounting knowledge and experience to evaluate whether the information is normal or not. Audit professional judgment level is the fundamental embodiment of auditors' comprehensive quality and professional ability, and it is the core index to measure auditors' professional level.
(2) Audit professional judgment is closely related to the fuzziness of accounting information.
Fuzziness is relative accuracy and certainty, and the fuzziness of accounting information is mainly manifested in the fuzziness, uncertainty and inaccuracy of information provided by accounting, with many artificial and estimated components. Because accounting information is an approximate result obtained through the process of estimation, classification, summary, judgment and distribution, the information is not 100% accurate and reliable, which determines the uncertainty of accounting information and the influence of human factors. Among them, the flexibility of accounting laws and regulations has a direct impact on the fuzziness of accounting information. The flexibility of accounting laws and regulations will be enhanced, and the diversity and selectivity of accounting policies and accounting treatment methods will be significantly improved, thus increasing the fuzziness of accounting information. As far as auditing is concerned, the improvement of accounting information fuzziness requires auditors to make judgments in a large number of fuzzy events and determine their appropriateness, thus improving the requirements for auditors' professional judgment, and the importance of auditing professional judgment will be paid more attention.
(3) Audit professional judgment runs through the whole process of audit activities.
Auditors should make a series of important judgments in the whole audit process. In the planning stage, it is necessary to investigate and understand the basic situation of the audited entity, preliminarily evaluate the internal control of the audited entity, determine the importance, analyze the audit risk and prepare the audit plan. In the audit implementation stage, it is necessary to determine the audit focus and collect audit evidence. When determining the audit focus, we should consider the strength of the internal control system of the audited entity and the nature and characteristics of the economic business; When collecting audit evidence, we should consider the correlation between relevant materials and the audited project, and consider the sufficiency and effectiveness of the evidence. At the stage of audit completion, it is necessary to comprehensively analyze and study audit evidence, compare audit standards, characterize problems, form audit opinions and issue audit reports. These all depend on proper professional judgment.
(4) Audit professional misjudgment is an important cause of audit failure.
Audit failure means that auditors fail to find false and untrue financial statements and issue wrong audit opinions. There are three reasons for audit failure, namely, the professional knowledge of auditors is defective; Not knowing enough about the operation of the audited entity; There is something wrong with the audit procedure. Among them, professional knowledge is the basis of auditors' professional judgment, and the defect of professional knowledge will inevitably affect the auditor's professional judgment level, while insufficient understanding of the audited unit's operation and improper audit procedures often stem from wrong professional judgment. According to the US treadway com-mission research report, 66% of the complaints against certified public accountants show that auditors have not collected sufficient and appropriate evidence; 36% of the complaints against certified public accountants show that auditors have failed to be vigilant or give enough professional doubts about the potential problems found in the audit process. The auditor's ability in these aspects depends on the auditor's professional judgment level. There is such a passage in the preface of Montgomery Audit: "Audit failure is usually caused by the cunning and fraud of management, or by the auditor's lack of brilliant judgment on the intentional or unintentional use or misuse of accounting principles by customers".
(5) The audit environment plays a decisive role in the audit professional judgment function.
Audit activities are always completed under certain environmental conditions, and the development of audit environment always has a profound impact on audit professional judgment. The evolution of audit environment directly leads to the emergence of audit professional judgment, and makes audit professional judgment play a more important role in audit activities. At present, our society is in the transition period from planned economy to market economy. Under this background, the status of audit profession and audit environment are changing. Therefore, it is of great practical significance to study the influence of environmental factors on audit professional judgment.