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This document is a summary of our research thesis. This work, based on a qualitative study, focuses on clarifying the position of the external auditor when facing fraud and his role in preventing and detecting it. Fraud is a reality that many companies often face and struggle with managing its circumstances. Although fraud can be committed for or against the company, we are more interested in cases of fraud committed in companies by internal persons.
At this point, several questions are raised: How important is the risk of fraud to the external auditor?
Is fraud detection and prevention part of the auditor's responsibility? What type of fraud could engage the responsibility of the auditor? How should the auditor react to the fraud detected? These are the questions we attempted to answer through this work. We also had recourse to interviews with auditors to discuss this issue.

Auditor, fraud, responsibilities of the auditor, fraud prevention, fraud detection. --- Sciences économiques & de gestion > Comptabilité & audit

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After the financial crisis, several actors (investors, analysts, etc.) brought the role of audit into question. The auditor’s conclusion was criticized since it only gave a binary pass/fail opinion without including specific information related to audited entities and to the audit that had been performed. This lack of transparency was exacerbated by the auditor’s use of boilerplate wording. 
Lots of regulators developed new control frameworks to enhance the auditor’s report. The most significant change is the obligation to introduce a new paragraph describing « Key Audit Matters (KAM) » (IAASB), « Critical Audit Matters » (PCAOB) or similar concepts elaborated by the European Union, the FRC or the NBA. The objectives of this innovation are to improve communicative value, transparency, insight and readability of the auditor’s report, and to increase audit quality.
Our study focuses on the notion of KAM developed by the IAASB in the ISA 701, which will be effective for quoted companies at the end of 2016. This paper highlights the impact the KAM section will have on auditor’s behavior in Belgium. Besides, it analyzes if the plausible conduct of auditor will affect or not audit quality. 
We executed a qualitative research divided into two main ways of gathering evidence. First, we performed a literature review in order to build strong hypotheses. To anticipate the impacts of KAM in Belgium, some hypotheses are based on observations drawn in the UK where a concept similar to the one of the IAASB is in place since 2013. These hypotheses have been afterwards compared to the results of six interviews carried out in Belgium. We met five partners active in Big4 accounting firms and an expert from the FSMA.
Our work demonstrates that Belgian auditors will have to adapt their behavior to fulfill their new role. Respondents predominantly underlined the same new possible trends and areas of attention. Based on these comments, we identified risks that may happen and that auditors should avoid. Moreover, we addressed recommendations to those willing to comply with the new requirements as far as possible. Audit quality is more debated as it is a notion which is difficult to define. As a consequence, we analyzed the impacts on both audit quality and audit quality as perceived by the users of financial statements.

Key Audit Matters --- auditor’s report --- auditor’s behavior --- audit quality --- ISA 701 --- Sciences économiques & de gestion > Comptabilité & audit

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Corporate failures and accounting scandals have shaken the foundations of investors’ confidence in the transparency, integrity and accountability of corporations and financial markets. There have also been public disquiet about the role of professional auditors and audit firms, who had been associated with these corporate scandals. Written from a global perspective, the book assists in understanding the gravity of independent attitude of statutory auditors in protecting stakeholders’ interest and examines the effectiveness of the existing standards and other legal and regulatory requirements in enforcing statutory auditors’ independent engagement. It then suggests modifications in those regulations. The study has been made through seven chapters in order to address empirically statutory auditors’ independence in protecting stakeholders’ interest. Primary audiences of the book are researchers in finance and control, students, and professionals in the field of accounting and auditing. Dr. Mitrendu Narayan Roy is an Assistant Professor, Goenka College of Commerce and Business Administration for more than 2 years. He did his M.Com. from the University of Calcutta in 2010 and qualified NET with JRF under UGC in 2011. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Calcutta under the supervision of Dr. Siddhartha Sankar Saha in 2016. He has published more than 25 research papers in refereed journals along with a joint authorship for research oriented book published by Emerald Publishing Ltd., UK. Dr. Siddhartha Sankar Saha is a Professor of Commerce in the Department of Commerce at University of Calcutta, Kolkata, West Bengal, India. He served department of commerce (Accounting and Finance), St. Xavier’s College (Autonomous), Kolkata, India previously. He obtained his PhD in Finance from the Department of Commerce, University of Calcutta. He has two decades of teaching experience at undergraduate and postgraduate levels in accounting, finance and control in universities and business schools, and is presently supervising a number of MPhil and PhD scholars. He has completed a Major Research Project (MRP) funded by the UGC, New Delhi, India and is currently conducting another MRP funded by the ICSSR, New Delhi, India. Dr. Saha has 122 research papers to his credit in journals of national and international repute, conference proceedings of national and international conferences and edited volumes. Dr. Saha has also been invited to chair sessions and deliver keynote speeches at international conferences in India and abroad. He has become a prolific author and has contributed ten books in the field of finance published by publication houses of national and international repute, such as McGraw-Hill Education, Taxmann, LAP Lambert Academic Publishing, Scholars’ Press and Emerald Publishing.

Finance. --- Accounting. --- Bookkeeping. --- Financial Accounting. --- Accounting/Auditing. --- Double entry bookkeeping --- Business --- Business education --- Accounting --- Accountancy --- Business enterprises --- Commerce --- Commercial accounting --- Finance --- Financial accounting --- Bookkeeping --- Funding --- Funds --- Economics --- Currency question --- Auditor-client relationships. --- Auditor and client --- Auditors and clients --- Client and auditor --- Client-auditor relationships --- Clients and auditors --- Interpersonal relations --- Bookkeeping .

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Business Professionals, to be Truly Effective and Advance in their Careers, Must Master their People-Centric Skills. People-Centric Skills: Interpersonal and Communication Skills for Auditors and Business Professionals is a comprehensive guide to the ""soft skills"" that make technical professionals more effective. People-Centric Skills aim to improve all aspects of personal interactions, relationship development, and communication. These skills are as essential to success as are technical capabilities. This is the story of a leading internal audit department taking that

Communication in organizations. --- Interpersonal communication. --- Auditor-client relationships. --- Conflict management. --- Problem solving. --- Corporate culture.

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In the economic context of the past two decades, where the collapse of giant international
companies led to the 2008 financial crisis, the audit profession was highly criticized due to the
lack of rigor during audits. Audit firms were accused to ignore big issues in the accounts of
their clients, allowing them to use accounting loopholes in order to hide billion of debts or
significantly increase their revenues. As a result, investors lost trust toward the accounts of the
companies, even with the audit firm stamp, which froze the economy.
The audit profession was reformed and new standards were created in order to prevent such
disasters to happen again. Tighten up the audit standards led to longer and heavier audit
processes, which sometimes creates tensions between the auditor and his client, who finds the
audit too invasive.
In order to face these growing tensions with their clients, the auditors have to acquire additional
skills on top of their technical skills if they want to keep a good relation with them. These skills
are called « soft skills » and relate to competencies such as communication, adaptability or team
working.
This thesis aims to analyze the background of the young graduated in terms of « soft skills »
and determine whether their school curriculum and trainings received from their employer are
appropriate to prepare them to maintain good relations with their clients during the audit.
To this end, an empirical approach is adopted, which consists in both a quantitative and
qualitative analysis among recently graduated professionals working as financial auditors. The
results are analyzed and compared to the existing literature on this topic in order draw
conclusions and recommendations on the research question.
It appears that the young graduated consider that their « soft skills » background when arriving
on the field is not sufficient and that they are not ready to handle a relation with the clients. In
addition, the importance of the « soft skills » seems to be increasing and becoming even more
essential to the profession that the technical knowledge.
Finally, five recommendations are drawn up and are addressed to both academic and
professional bodies.

soft skills --- audit --- junior auditor --- Sciences économiques & de gestion > Comptabilité & audit