Audit

Etymologically, the word "audit" comes from lat. audio - “hear”. The need for audit, as expected, arose simultaneously with the emergence and development of commodity exchange and monetary relations. The development of the audit was closely related to the peculiarities of the financial and industrial history of individual countries and was determined, first of all, by the nature of the development of the capital market.

In Europe, an audit appeared in the XII century, then in England there was a procedure "Michaelmas Audit of the Sum of the Seriff's Account" [14, volume III, p. 42], ie "Mikhailo-Arkhangelsk audit of the sum of sheriff accounts" ^[1] .

In the Middle Ages, in European trading cities, at the request of counterparties to merchants (usually other merchants or banking institutions), auditors checked the books of merchants and testified to their authenticity. In the XIX century, the main customers of the audit were, in addition to creditors , the owners of companies, which was associated with the active development of joint-stock and limited companies, in which the owners were not engaged in current management and, accordingly, needed periodic inspection of the hired managers.

The globalization of the economy, the creation of multinational corporations with many divisions, often scattered throughout the country, and even around the world, have significantly strengthened the business needs of independent auditors . In addition, as government intervention in the economy grew and taxation systems became more complex, companies began to need independent specialists who could check the firm’s accounting and tax reporting in order to identify reporting errors and distortions and prevent sanctions from government agencies.

In the XX century, in connection with the active development of the stock market , a new category of persons interested in auditing appeared - investors . As a rule, each new wave of scandals related to the bankruptcy of companies whose stocks or debt securities are listed and actively traded, resulted in judicial prosecution of auditors and toughening requirements for auditors and their audits. Due to the large number of investors have become the most active and demanding consumer of audit services.

From the middle of the 20th century, auditors began to expand their interests and began to carry out activities not only to confirm accounting reports, but also began to conduct accounting for third-party organizations, acting as a collective corporate accountant and lawyer, as well as an investment consultant and trustee for their customers. In addition, the scientific and technological revolution forced audit companies to master the functions of introducing modern enterprise management technologies, accounting automation, implementing quality control systems and other related work.

In the XX century, audit was divided into two large groups:

• financial / investment audit;
• industrial audit.

Financial and investment audit

Financial - this is an audit in the classical sense, that is, checking financial statements and expressing an opinion on its reliability. Closely adjacent to it is an investment audit - a conclusion on the targeted and efficient use of investment resources and an audit of professional participants in investment activity ( exchanges , investment and construction companies). Also close to the financial audit is the audit and inventory activities. Depending on whether the company's financial statements are audited by an independent auditor or by their own employees, it is customary to distinguish between independent (audit in the classical sense) and internal audit .

Industrial Audit

Industrial audit is a more complex phenomenon, as it includes elements of financial (in terms of setting the cost of products, confirming the validity of tariffs for services - for example, housing and communal services ) and purely technical audit.

A technical audit is understood to mean verification by independent experts of the production organization system, quality control and management system, applied technical and technological solutions, as well as checking the technical condition of machines, equipment, mechanisms, buildings and structures, utilities, systems and networks, as well as checking technical and design documentation with an opinion on the validity of the applied technical / technological solutions, production management methods and technical compliance the technical state of engineering complex systems and equipment to the requirements of regulatory enactments.

This also includes a set of measures for conducting an audit of the information technology environment of an enterprise - an IT audit of systems and services, as well as an understanding of the level of software and hardware support - the level of automation .

Inspection activities are adjacent to industrial auditing - that is, activities for the technical supervision (manufacturing, construction, assembly, commissioning) of technically complex products that have so-called hidden work (work that cannot be seen and accepted in quality in the future - for example, foundation work ) and activities for the independent acceptance of technically complex products (ships, turbines , technological complexes) and confirmation of achievement of design parameters, as well as acceptance of consignments of goods with confirmation of their properties, quantity and quality.

Varieties of industrial audit are environmental audit (confirmation of environmental loads), energy audit, audit of operating costs and confirmation of tariffs (used mainly to justify prices for products of natural and other monopolies ) and other types of special audits (for example - ESD- audit ).

Personnel Audit

Personnel audit is the definition, assessment of the personal potential of employees and the compliance of employees with the corporate culture and values ​​of the company.

In the course of this audit, the level of compliance of the employee with the position held by him is established, personal qualities are assessed, and a comprehensive description of the employees is given.

PR audit

Tasks - to verify the implementation of project tasks, to analyze the effectiveness of the use of funds allocated for the project. During the audit, such techniques are used as counting the number of messages, evaluations, types of media , evaluating materials on several components, statistical processing of motives. Along with the above methods, sociological polls and targeted studies of representatives of the target audience of the project can be used ^[2] .

Environmental Audit

An environmental audit of an enterprise is a comprehensive and independent assessment of compliance with requirements, including the requirements of applicable international standards, norms and normative documents in the field of environmental safety, environmental management and environmental protection, as well as the preparation of relevant recommendations and their documentation for improving the performance of enterprises and organizations in the environmental field.

History

One of the first known checks of the financial condition in the Russian Empire was a check of the situation in the Tobolsk province, where the governor was MP Gagarin. ^[3]

In Soviet times

In Soviet times , the audit of financial statements of enterprises and organizations was called the word “audit”. To verify the accounting of one enterprise, accountants of other enterprises were involved (the principle of "peer checks peer"). The audit was conducted in a continuous manner in order to detect abuse and theft. Thus, the audit was fundamentally different from the audit of financial statements in its classical sense.

Late 1980s - p.t.

The term “audit” returned to Russia (then to the USSR) in the late 1980s. in connection with the activities of newly established joint ventures . The former auditors and accountants were the first auditors, so the audits in the early 1990s strongly resembled Soviet-style audits. Only gradually did the standards and elements of classical financial audit take root on Russian soil. Nevertheless, to this day, the idea of ​​audit has not fully developed for both representatives of the profession and users of the audit; audit elements are still present in the work.

The audit market mainly developed by the mid-1990s and has not fundamentally changed to date. It presents three main groups of players: (1) international audit and consulting groups (The Big Four ), (2) large Russian audit and consulting companies, many of which are part of international networks and provide services under their brand name, (3) medium and small audit companies. The first two groups, being not numerous, accumulate the lion's share of the market in monetary terms, providing high-margin services to the largest and most solvent companies. The third group, being the largest in terms of the composition of the participants (share by number> 90%), receives only a small share of revenue. Companies of this group operate in the middle and low price segment, and sometimes they are desperately dumping.

Regulation

Until 2002, the activities of auditors were regulated by the Interim Rules on Auditing adopted by the President in 1993 and a number of acts of the Government of Russia and the Audit Council under the President of Russia. Since the end of 1994, mandatory certification of auditors has been introduced, and since 1995 - licensing of audit organizations and private auditors.

In 2001, the Federal Law of Russia “On Auditing Activities” was adopted and entered into force in 2002, which had a certain impact on the financial audit market and its movement towards more civilized work standards. In particular, the law established special legal capacity for audit organizations (audit firms have the right to engage only in audit and related services). A minimum number of audit firms was introduced. Individual auditors were denied access to the mandatory audit market.

Starting from 2003, on the initiative of the Ministry of Finance, representatives of the audit profession, and other interested parties, a new version of the Law on Auditing was being drafted, which dragged on due to a clash of opposing opinions on a number of points (mainly due to the cancellation of licensing and requirements for SROs ) Finally, in December 2008, it was adopted and from January 1, 2009 (separate articles from January 1, 2010), the new federal law “On Auditing Activities” No. 307-FZ came into force, in accordance with which licensing of auditors is replaced by mandatory membership in audit SROs. SRO members must also be individual auditors. The minimum number of members is 700 auditors or 500 audit organizations. Individual auditors are partially returned access to the mandatory audit. Liability insurance has been replaced by the SRO compensation fund mechanism.

Features of audit perception in Russia

The specifics of audit perception in Russia, in addition to the Soviet past (see above) and the young age of the profession, are also determined by the fact that the separation of business owners from the operational management of the business occurred mainly in large public companies. In many other enterprises, owners continue to manage, therefore there is no conflict between “hired manager and shareholder”, which is traditionally the “engine” of an independent audit of financial statements.

As a result, the owners-managers do not need an audit of financial statements. In the best case (for auditors), they require related services, in particular, a tax audit (which, however, is often ordered and carried out as part of a reporting audit agreement). Considering these needs of clients, auditors (mainly from the third group) appropriately build inspections, even if they are called audits: most of the time is spent on analysis of tax liabilities and risks of clients, and insignificant - to provide formal signs of an audit of financial statements. Understanding this audit specificity, many Russian banks, when considering clients' loan applications, require that they submit not audited financial statements, but managerial reports according to their standards. Thus, the demand for audit of financial statements by banks, which, it would seem, should stimulate the market, is not explicitly expressed.

As a result, to this day, the most interested party in conducting the audit are the auditors themselves. This largely explains such phenomena as the “omnivorous” auditors, price dumping, characteristic of the third group of auditors. This also partly explains the way (from top to bottom) that the financial audit has worked its way up to now: the state (not without the involvement of lobbyists from the profession) has established and revised several times cases where an audit is mandatory for companies, thus creating non-market demand for profession services.

Quantitative Characteristics of the Audit Market

Currently, the Ministry of Finance of Russia is registered in the register of 5 audit SROs (data as of the end of 2016) ^[4] .

The number of certified auditors is 38.8 thousand people. Of these, only 0.7 thousand people provide audit services directly, the rest are employees of audit firms, the number of which, in turn, is 6.2 thousand. (all data at the beginning of 2009).

По состоянию на 28.11.2016, количество аудиторских организаций и индивидуальных аудиторов, внесённых в контрольный экземпляр реестра Минфина, составило соответственно 4.3 тыс. фирм ^[5] и 20,7 тыс. чел. ^[6] (данные официального сайта Минфина)

Обязательный аудит

Обязательный аудит — обязательная ежегодная проверка бухгалтерской отчётности открытых акционерных обществ, банков, бирж, фондов, организаций с долей уставного капитала, принадлежащей иностранному инвестору, крупных предприятий и других организаций, перечень которых установлен нормативными актами. ^[7]

Законом «Об аудиторской деятельности» и рядом других федеральных законов установлены случаи, в которых компании обязаны провести независимый аудит своей бухгалтерской или иной отчётности. Это относится к компаниям определённых секторов: кредитные организации, инвестиционные компании и фонды и т. д.; к количественным характеристикам компаний: согласно Закону 400-ФЗ от 28.12.2010 выручка свыше 400 млн руб, активы свыше 60 млн руб; к статусу компаний — ОАО ; к предприятиям-банкротам. Действующие критерии обязательного аудита введены с 1 января 2011 года. ^[8] В остальных случаях проводимый аудит, согласно сложившейся практике, именуется «инициативным» ^[9] («добровольным», «по индивидуальному заданию»).

Международные стандарты аудита (МСА) разрабатываются и регулярно обновляются Комитетом по международным стандартам аудита и подтверждения достоверности информации (International Auditing and Assurance Standarts Board) при Международной Федерации Бухгалтеров (IFAC) ^[10] .

В России до 31.12.2016, а также по договорам заключенным в 2016 году и ранее применяются федеральные правила (стандарты) аудиторской деятельности , утверждаемые Правительством РФ. Эти Правила практически полностью основаны на МСА. В Федеральный закон «Об аудиторской деятельности» внесены поправки согласно которым, с 2017 года будут применяться Международные стандарты аудита (МСА). ^{[11] [12]}

Официальная публикация стандартов, применяемых в России, находится на сайте Министерства финансов [1] .

Перевод на русский язык признаный Комитетом по международным стандартам аудита и подтверждения достоверности информации (International Auditing and Assurance Standarts Board) при Международной Федерации Бухгалтеров (IFAC) 2015 год [2] (требует регистрации).

• Внешний аудит
• Внутренний аудит
• Социальный аудит
• Медиааудит
• Аудит легальности программного обеспечения
• Аудит сделок
• Обязательный аудит
• Аудиторская компания
• Аудиторский след
• Материальность

• Igor Reichman. The practice of media measurement. Audit Reporting Assessment of the effectiveness of PR. - M .: Alpina Publisher , 2013 .-- 432 p. - ISBN 978-5-9614-4499-5 .
• Peter Etrill, Eddie McLainey. Financial management and management accounting for executives and businessmen. - M .: Alpina Publisher , 2016 .-- 648 p. - ISBN 978-5-9614-5547-2 .

[ [3] ] - Mobile audit service.