Dwelling on the Impact of Audit Evidence on Audit Quality

Audit evidence is the auditor to make audit conclusions of the supporting evidence, is to support the pillars of the audit conclusions. The quality of audit evidence is related to the success or failure of the entire audit, the quality of audit evidence and its control of the study has become urgent. It is the role of audit evidence and its quality as the "foundation of the building", the research on the quality of audit evidence and its control has been the study of experts and scholars, the study of this issue has become a hot topic. They put forward their own views on the control of the quality of audit evidence, which plays an important role in improving the quality of audit evidence. They pointed out that the adequacy, relevance and reliability of the current audit evidence is not high, the audit evidence is not enough, the audit evidence method is backward, the quality of the auditors is low, the implementation of the accountability mechanism of the auditors is not in place and other issues. They believe that in order to solve these problems, it is necessary to solve them from all aspects *** with. Auditors should improve traditional audit techniques and checking methods, improve the accountability of auditors, strengthen the business training of auditors, scientifically assess the level of audit risk and importance, and strengthen the probative power of audit evidence. Firms should standardize the decision-making of audit evidence, strengthen the responsibility and constraint mechanism for quality control of audit evidence, and establish a quality assessment system for audit projects of accounting firms. They also believe that to further improve the quality of audit evidence should adhere to the premise of the audit in accordance with the law, to strengthen the audit process control: around the audit objective to determine the scope and content of the evidence, scientific selection of evidence methods, adhere to the scientific attitude of evidence, strictly grasp the key points, and seriously do a good job of identification and comprehensive analysis of evidence.

The quality of audit evidence is an important part of audit quality, to effectively improve the quality of audit must improve the quality of audit evidence. Audit evidence quality refers to the audit evidence obtained whether the audit work has a positive impact on the audit, whether the audit conclusions have a positive impact. Low quality audit evidence will have a negative impact on the audit, and high quality audit evidence will have a positive impact. A high quality of audit evidence will have a positive impact on the drawing of audit conclusions and vice versa.

The main quality characteristics of audit evidence are: adequacy, relevance, reliability, legitimacy, and timeliness.

(1) the adequacy of audit evidence refers to the quantity and quality of audit evidence is sufficient to enable the auditor to form an audit opinion, is the auditor to form an audit opinion of the minimum quantity and quality of audit evidence required.

(2) relevance means that the audit evidence should be relevant to the audit objectives, and the audit evidence that confirms the matter being audited should be relevant to the audit objectives.

(3) reliability refers to the audit evidence should be able to faithfully reflect the objective facts, is the degree of credibility of the audit evidence. For example, the certified public accountant personally check the inventory to obtain audit evidence is more reliable than the inventory data provided by the audited unit.

(4) legitimacy refers to the audit evidence of the forensic procedures are legal, the forensic means are legal and the forensic content is legal, etc., is the overall requirements of the audit evidence.

(5) Timeliness refers to the time covered by audit evidence should be consistent with the formation of the audited matter.