The Relationship of Professional Skepticism to the Risks of Auditing and Internal Control, and the Discovery of Fraud and Core Errors in the Financial Statements in Jordan

Abstract

The study aims to know the relationship between the professional skepticism of the auditor and the discovery of fraud and errors in the financial statements, as the auditor's practice of professional skepticism enhances his ability to issue a neutral technical opinion about the fairness of financial statements. The study also examined the relationship of professional skepticism with audit risks, especially the risks that management controls and is responsible for, which are control risks and inherent risks. The auditor should not be satisfied with less than convincing evidence. No matter how honest and fair the management and those responsible for institutional control are, this should not prevent the auditor from using professional skepticism. In order to enhance the auditor's confidence in the audit outcome and not to rush into his ruling on financial statements, international audit standards urged the need to exercise professional skepticism at all stages of auditing to provide quality in the audit process and give confidence to internal and external users of those statements. The study recommended through examining and evaluating 112 questionnaires distributed to auditing offices and companies to pay attention to the practice of professional skepticism, especially in the event that the management and those responsible for institutional control do not respond to the auditor's inquiries. Also; the study recommended that auditors should not come to final decisions until sufficient, appropriate and reliable evidence has been obtained; through which they can reach the conviction of issuing impartial technical opinion.

Received: 11 December 2020 / Accepted: 2 February 2021 / Published: 5 March 2021