Discussion of Audit Recommendations and Management Auditing: A Case Study and Some Remarks

Abstract

The paper of Neil C. Churchill is concerned primarily with internal auditing-that is, review and evaluation of financial and other activities by members of same organization. It is not concerned with independent, external auditing: examination of financial statements and underlying records by independent certified public accountants for primary purpose of expressing an opinion on financial statements. The research sections of paper are further limited scope by coverage of audit function United States Department of Navy. While this limitation does not necessarily cast doubt on conclusions reached, it does raise a question as to whether these conclusions apply to audit function other environments. The first section-on concept of auditing-is a fairly straightforward statement of views and, although bases for arriving at conclusions are not stated, there appears to be little ground for disagreement with broad comments. The categorization of audits into three types appears to be somewhat artificial, since typical audit generally includes actions of all three categories. This artificiality becomes more noticeable subsequent section which an attempt is made to express percentages frequency of occurrence of audit categories Navy. This section contains a brief discussion of the current controversy over auditor's independence and his offering of management services. I The author states that, instead of being a matter of independence, this is in reality a question of specificity of audit criteria. It would appear that this discussion is valid stressing need for sound professional judgment examining (or auditing) a particular set of circumstances as