In some environments it is possible to render the act of fraud more difficult by improving the audit technology.
"We welcome constructive suggestions for improving the audit process," said Tim Hill, chief financial officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Two initiatives emerged from the European Commission this week, one to improve the audit profession, the other to tax financial transactions.
The PCAOB inspections are mandated by the Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002, and are designed to promote high professional audit standards and improve the audit quality of registered public accounting firms (U.S. House, 2002).
In 1998, for example, he wrote that the "performance of non-audit services can improve the audit function".The SEC under Mr Levitt eventually backed away from its attempt to ban firms from (in particular) offering IT consulting services to their audit clients but not before it appeared to have sent three big firms scurrying to divest their consulting businesses.
And its auditor in 2000 was none other than Andersen, which picked up another $31m from Waste Management in consultancy fees.The SEC's incoming chairman, Harvey Pitt, a Washington securities lawyer, wrote in 1998 that the "performance of non-audit services can improve the audit function".
This makes sense given how these tools can improve the audit.
There were also a number of "failings" in procedures that need to be improved, the audit found.
The interviewed professionals made several suggestions to improve the audit meetings, particularly the participation at these meetings: First, invite all employees to the meetings, or at least one representative of each category of professionals.
An audit report typically ends with results from the audits and recommendations for improving the entity audited.
