Auditor Resposibility

Rebecca, great job with your post; discussing such a pressing issue in the accounting and auditing profession today. As I stated in my post, keeping a strong code of ethics is arguably one of the most important things for an auditor to follow these days. For auditors and accountants both, failing to follow proper ethical behaviors can jeopardize their career. In a profession such as auditing/accounting the value of their opinion and work is the lifeline for their career, and you stated Rebecca, without proper ethical standards the value of ones work and opinions will carry no weight. For accountants and auditors this could mean the end of their career as no one wants to hire someone they cannot trust.

As straight forward as this may seem, things can actually become much trickier as compared to other professions. It is quite easy to overlook the fact that while other professions only have to take into consideration their responsibility to their client, auditors must also take into consideration their responsibility to society. This is significantly different for an auditor as they are to serve both the client and the general public. The catch is that even though "they are compensated by the client; their primary focus is to represent the public" (Cohn, para. 1). A fantastic example of this exact dilemma was presented in our text where a man by the name of Arthur Andersen was highlighted. Arthur worked for a firm auditing Enron, and "many have argued that Arthur Andersen's independence was impaired on the Enron engagement because of the large consulting fees ($27 million per year) that the firm was receiving which exceeded the audit fees ($25 million per year) for the engagement" (Lowers, et al., 2010, p. 590). The basis for this argument is that the partners of the firm Andersen worked for were more concerned about the large "consulting fees that they compromised their professional skepticism when dealing with Enron's questionable accounting practices" (Lowers, et al., 2010, p. 590).