Modern Federal Standards of Auditing

The organization and conducting of audit is one of the effective tools for ensuring effective business conduct. Among other things, it forms the necessary link between the business community and the fiscal system of the state, but not at the level of direct interactions to collect taxes and payments, but about improving accounting.

The purpose of any audit activity is to identify an adequate and reliable opinion on the quality of financial activities and its compliance with established rules and patterns of accounting and reporting accounting documentation. At the same time, as the main principles of auditing activity provide, the auditor can express and state his opinion on the state of financial reporting on all important aspects.

It is important to take into account the fact that the auditor's opinion is counter-positional, that is, the audited person does not have the right to accept, let alone represent to third parties, the auditor's opinion as evidence of the correctness of the business. The converse is also true, but the practice of conducting the audit shows that in any case, the audit helps to increase the quality of financial activities and increase the confidence in it by the audit structures.

As federal rules provide, auditing standards should be built taking into account the international requirements for conducting this activity, which consist in the declaration of unified goals and principles of audit.

Modern federal standards for auditing activities are provisions, the main of which are: independence, compliance with confidentiality rules during inspections, honesty and objectivity of verification and conclusions based on its results, professional competence and integrity, professional conduct. In addition, each auditor in the performance of his duties, must comply with the standards established by international and national associations of auditors (standards).

The current federal auditing standards include audit standards developed by the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation. At the moment they are structurally composed of first-level standards and second-stage standards, with some of the standards of the first stage (from the fifth to the 15th) lost their validity. In total, for the time being federal auditing standards consist of 29 provisions that fully comply with international standards of auditing.

The principle of independence consists in the need for the auditor to have no opinion on the entity being audited and its activities, which ensures that the audit is objective. Also, this principle presupposes the absence of any kind of dependence of the auditor on the person who is being audited. For example, an audit can not be conducted by auditors who are founders of enterprises of audited entrepreneurs, to be members of them or other responsible persons in close family ties.

The principle of completeness, as suggested by the federal standards of auditing, is expressed in verifying the entire necessary list of documents to obtain accurate information about the state of financial activity.

The principle of confidentiality (referred to as an audit secret) is to provide the auditors with the integrity of the reporting documentation and its security. In addition, they must not transfer these documents to third parties or allow anyone to use them during the audit. The principle of confidentiality must be respected also when the dissemination of information about the audited entity may be inflicted on it materially financial or image damage.

The system of audit standards is not only a corporate code, but also a legal institution whose regulation and authorization is the prerogative of the state.