Perceptions and Expectations Regarding the Activity of Financial Auditors from Users of Financial Statements

Abstract

The current economic-financial environment, constantly changing, characterized by increasingly strong signals for a new period of recession brings back into focus the debates regarding the "audit expectation gap" issue. The study aims to carry out a questionnaire-based research. The purpose of the undertaken approach is to analyze the perceptions and expectations that users of financial information have regarding the external audit activity. These aspects are presented in the context of the need to increase the quality of the audit and the concerns of the professional bodies to be actively involved in the continuous training of its members. The work is based on a questionnaire survey, quantitative method, and the interpretation of the results was carried out by means of qualitative tools such as: analysis, generalization of the obtained data and professional reasoning. At the level of the analyzed sample, the discrepancies in perception intervene mainly against the background of the lack of education of the respondents, especially regarding the technical elements of a basic mission in the financial audit. The attitude towards the objectivity and independence of professional accountants is generally a good one.