Financial Accounting

Accounting Concepts

Financial Statements (Regulatory oversight)

The rapid failure and bankruptcy of Enron has prompted severe criticism of the nation's financial reporting and auditing systems, which are fundamental to maintaining investor confidence in U.S. capital markets; there are four areas in which the Enron failure revealed serious problems: corporate governance, the independent audit of financial statements, oversight of the accounting profession, and accounting and financial reporting issues (GAO, 2002). The financial statements are the frontline in determining a company's integrity and accountability. When a company makes its financial statements public, then they can be scrutinized by many external entities to be used in the market.

However, before financial statements are made public, they should be examined by an external auditor. Auditing is one of the most essential functions in the entire accounting business function and mistakes made in accounting can cost an organization everything. Therefore the auditing process...
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