TE||The great expectations gap
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导读
什么是审计？
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听力|精读|翻译|词组
The great expectations gap
期望相去甚远
英文部分选自经济学人Finance and economics版块
The great expectations gap
期望相去甚远
审计期望差距构成因素包括：审计人员认为所应当执行的行为（具体包含审计人员按照审计准则的要求对审计的认识、工作方式）、依赖审计报告的人对审计的期望（社会公众或利益相关者对审计的期望）两部分。进一步可以分解为审计合理期望与执行期望。按照这种理解，审计期望差中不存在不合理差距。
What is an audit for?
审计的目的是什么？
Lawmakers, auditors, investors and courts all have different expectations
立法者，审计，投资人以及法院都拥有不同的期望值
AUDITS get noticed only when things go wrong. Last week British MPs issued a scathing attack on KPMG, an auditor, for failing to avert the collapse of Carillion, a contracting company. South African authorities are looking into Deloitte’s audit of Steinhoff, a retailer. PwC, another auditor, could face a court-damages verdict for hundreds of millions of dollars for not spotting fraud at Colonial Bank, a failed American lender. It is also fighting a $3bn lawsuit in Ukraine and a two-year ban in India.
只有当事情出现差池时审计才备受瞩目。上周，毕马威因没能成功阻止承包公司Carillion（英国建筑巨头）的破产而遭到英国议员的猛烈抨击。南非当局正在调查德勤对南非零售巨头石庭豪夫的审计工作。另外，普华永道由于没觉察出殖民银行（美倒闭的放贷机构）的欺诈行为，正面临损失上亿美元的法院判决。同时，其也正于乌克兰处理30亿美元的诉讼案件，在印度为两年从业禁令打官司。
毕马威（KPMG/台湾又名安侯建业）成立于1897年，总部位于荷兰阿姆斯特丹，是一家网络遍布全球的专业服务机构，专门提供审计、税务和咨询等服务。
Deloitte中文译名为德勤，是世界四大会计师事务所之一。遍布全球的分支机构和会员，总部设立在英国。其主要业务集中在四个领域：审计、税务规划、咨询和财务顾问。
安永会计师事务所(Ernst & Young)是世界知名的会计事务所，和普华永道、德勤、毕马威并称为世界四大会计师事务所（Big Four）。
Investors are also waking up to audits. They almost never vote against management’s choice of auditor. But last month over a third of shareholders at General Electric, an industrial conglomerate, voted against the reappointment of KPMG. Investors in Steinhoff are suing the company and Deloitte for $5bn for their losses.
投资者也关注审计。他们几乎从不反对审计人员的管理意见，但是上个月美国通用电气（工业集团）三分之一的股东反对重聘毕马威会计事务所。石庭豪夫的投资者因毕马威和德勤造成的50亿美元损失正向他们提起诉讼。
Wake up to: become aware of sth.
These actions challenge an industry dominated by four big firms: Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC. Between them they earned $47bn from auditing most of the world’s largest firms in 2017, and $87bn more from selling consulting and tax advice. Regulators have tried to increase competition and limit conflicts of interest. But auditors argue that another problem is being ignored: that lawmakers, investors and courts all disagree about what an audit should be. They worry that they are being seen as providing insurance against corporate failure. Repeated large payouts could erode quality, they say, and even threaten the viability of the big firms.
这些行为挑战了由世界四大会计师事务所安永，普华永道、德勤、毕马威领头的会计行业权威。2017年他们向大多数全球巨型公司提供审计服务赚取了470亿美元，在税务和咨询业务板块获得了870多亿美元的报酬。监管者已经试图促进竞争，限制利益冲突。但是，审计人员争论的另一个被忽视的问题是，立法者，投资人以及审院对审计工作各持不同意见。他们对被认为要为公司破产提供担保表示担心。他们说，重复的巨额花销可能降低边际服务质量，甚至会威胁大公司的生存能力。
Developments in auditing have always been driven by corporate scandals. Until the mid-19th century investors used to look over the books themselves, checking that directors were not frittering away their capital. After a spate of accounting fraud during Britain’s railway mania, investors turned to professional accountants to do the job. The stockmarket crash in 1929 led to laws requiring listed firms in America to be audited. Scandals in the 2000s took down Enron, WorldCom and their auditor, Arthur Andersen. That led to more regulation intended to protect auditors’ objectivity, which comes under pressure because of limited competition and because they are paid by the firms they scrutinise, rather than the investors they serve. The tighter rules have had some success: measures of audit quality are improving.
审计的发展一直受到企业丑闻的推动。直到19世纪中期，投资者们才开始核查自己的账簿，审查董事们是否在挥霍资本。英国铁路热潮期间，财务欺诈涌现，投资者便求助于专业会计师来完成记账工作。1929年的股灾形成一项美国上市公司必须接受审计的立法。21世纪初的丑闻击溃了安然、世通及其审计公司安达信。这也导致了更严格的监管，旨在保证审计公司所提供服务的客观性。由于有限的竞争，并且审计费用由被审计公司支付而不是被服务的投资者，所以他们迫于来自被审计公司的压力而难以保证审计结果的客观性。。这些更严格的规则已经取得了一些成功—提高审计质量的方法正在完善。
But as Carillion shows, things can still go badly wrong. Incensed British MPs have called for a competition review to consider whether the Big Four in Britain should be broken up. The firms are braced for trouble. But they also argue that they cannot always get things right. People think of auditors as charged with seeking out fraud and failure, says Andrew Gambier from the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, a trade body. But today’s professional standards set out a more limited role. Auditors give an opinion on whether the accounts are a “true and fair” representation of reality; they consider the risk of fraud, but do not hunt it down.
但正如Carillion所示，事情仍有可能每况愈下。愤懑的英国国会议员已呼吁进行一次竞争审查，以考虑四大在英国是否应该被禁业。面对这些麻烦，四大有所准备。但他们也认为，他们不可能总是尽善尽美。行业组织特许注册会计师协会（ACCA）的安德鲁·甘比尔表示,人们将审计视为审查财务欺诈和公司漏洞的收费服务。但如今的专业标准发挥的作用更有所限制。审计员对账户是否是对现实“真实且公允”的反映提出了意见；他们也考虑到欺诈的风险，但并不会深究。
Robin Litjens from Tilburg University says there are several good reasons why failures may not always be detected. For one, a company’s books are so vast that audits can only realistically assess a sample of transactions in selected markets. Auditors hope that better data-analysis techniques should allow for larger samples and better anomaly detection. But for now, for large firms, looking at less than 5% of transactions is not unusual.
来自蒂尔堡大学的罗宾里格斯称，有几个很好的理由可以解释为什么漏洞并不总是被发现。首先，被审计公司的账簿内容繁多，以至于审计员只能现实地评估选定市场上的交易样本。审计人员希望，更先进的数据分析技术应支持更大的样本容量，并实现更好的异常检测功能。但就目前而言，能看到大型公司不足5%的交易数据都是不常见的。
Similarly, auditors look only for errors that are “material” compared with profits or assets. The threshold is often in the range of 0.5% to 10%. These limitations might help explain why, according to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, auditors picked up only 4% of occupational fraud in 2017. Although some firms offer more forensic audits, they cost so much in time and money that companies choose them only if they already suspect wrongdoing.
同样，审计师只针对相较利润或资产项而言的重大错报出具审计意见，审计中重要性水平通常设置在 0.5% 至10%之间。这些约束可能有助于解释了为什么2017年审计欺诈仅占专业欺诈的4%，这些数据来源于美国注册舞弊审查师机构（CFE）。虽然一些事务所能提供更多的法务审计服务，，但他们耗费大量的时间、金钱以至于只有当公司已经怀疑自身存在不当行为时能够被其选择进行审计业务。
Certified Fraud Examiners ：CFE 美国注册舞弊审查师，
Forensic audits：法务审计，工作内容包含经济犯罪审查 ，如舞弊审查，资产追踪等，以及数字法务会计的职责。
Another reason audits cannot offer any guarantees is that, despite involving numbers and spreadsheets, they are subjective. Accounts contain plenty of assumptions, for example concerning provisions for uncertain future payments. Auditors must use their judgment to decide if those assumptions are reasonable. They could be wrong, sometimes because of information that emerges after the audit is complete.
审计不能提供任何保证的另一个原因是， 尽管涉及数字及财务报表，但他们依旧是根据主观经验判断的。会计计量存在大量的假设，例如预期不确定的或有负债。审计师必须运用职业判断来决定顶那些会计假设是否合理。有时决策信息在审计结束后才出现，可能导致审计师的判断失误。
IAS 37 — Provisions, Contingent Liabilities and Contingent Assets：会计准则中或有负债是指过去的交易或事项形成的潜在义务，履行该义务不是很可能导致经济利益流出企业或该义务的金额不能可靠地计量。
Other parts of the expectations gap are, however, in their power to close. Auditors complain that they are judged solely on the few audits that go wrong. Of the 93,000 done in Britain alone each year, they say most are uneventful. In a handful, they may even have spotted fraud or mismanagement. These are shared with regulators, but not widely publicised, says David Sproul of Deloitte, because auditors are reluctant to provoke stock market volatility. “They are not equity analysts.”
然而，审计师以自己的力量减少了其他方面的期望落差。审计人员抱怨他们通常仅以少数审计错误而被盖棺定论。他们称，每年仅在英国的93,000 审计案例中，绝大多数是顺利进行的。他们甚至将可能发现一些舞弊欺诈或管理不善的问题，告知监管机构，但这些从未公开。 德勤(Deloitte)的戴维·斯普鲁尔(David Sproul) 解释道，这是因为审计员从不愿意挑起股市的波动，“他们不是股票分析师”。
Yet investors are clamouring for just such information. Rules in many countries, which also come into force in America next year, require auditors to elaborate on the main risks to their audit opinion. That helps, says Liz Murrall from the Investment Association, a trade body for British asset managers. Many investors would like also to hear how auditors challenged the management’s judgments. Others want auditors to go beyond financial statements to assess companies’ projections for sales and profits.
然而, 投资者们却在叫嚣这些信息。来自许多国家并将于明年在美国生效的法规, 要求审计员必须详细阐述其审计意见的主要风险。英国资产管理公司投资协会(Investment Association)的利兹·穆拉尔(LizMurrall)表示，这一点很有帮助。许多投资者也想听听审计师如何质疑管理层的判断。其他人则希望审计师越过财务报表层面,来评估公司未来的销售和获利情况。
Natasha Landell-Mills from Sarasin & Partners, an investment firm, compares the audit to a homebuyers’ survey. It may not guarantee there will never be a leak, but it should give reasonable assurance that there are none. She wonders if some auditors are skipping the most basic checks. According to the International Forum of Independent Audit Regulators (IFIAR), a group of national authorities, two-fifths of audits worldwide that are inspected are found to be flawed. Some auditors are not even sure about their responsibility to consider fraud. On top of that, they have been given free rein over their professional standards.
来自投资公司Sarasin＆Partners的Natasha Landell-Mills将审计比作购房者的调查行为。可能无法完全担保审计工作的准确性, 但应提供合理的保证不会出现漏洞。她想知道是否有些审计员正在跳过最基本的检查。国际权威组织独立审计监管机构国际论坛 (IFIAR)认为, 全球被检查的审计工作中2/5都是有缺陷的。一些审计员甚至不确定他们是否有责任考虑欺诈。除此之外，他们还可以自由支配自己的专业标准。
Reconciling all these views requires rethinking the purpose and scope of statutory audit. Brian Hunt, the head of IFIAR, agrees that audits need modernising so that they stay relevant to investors and help align expectations. But getting everyone involved, including regulators, standard-setting bodies, investors, companies and auditors themselves, to agree on what needs to be done is so complex that no one expects speedy progress.
要调和所有的这些意见，就需要重新考虑法定审计的目的和范围。IFIAR的负责人布赖恩·亨特(Brian Hunt)认为，审计需要现代化，以便与投资者保持相关性，并帮助实现预期。但让所有人参与进来，包括监管机构、标准制定机构、投资者、公司和审计师本身，就需要做的事情达成一致意见是非常复杂的，致使根本没有人期望迅速取得进展。
As long as misconceptions regarding audits exist, confrontations with angry investors and lawmakers seem likely. And the courts could side against auditors. Jim Peterson, who was an in-house lawyer for Arthur Andersen and has represented many of the large firms, points out that professional and legal standards differ. Auditors could have done what they see as their job, but still be found liable.
只要对审计还持有误解，那么审计师似乎仍有可能与愤懑的投资者和立法者存在对抗，而法院也不会支持审计师。彼德森（Jim Peterson），现在是安达信公司的内部律师，曾也担任过许多大公司的律师，他指出，专业标准和法律标准是两码事。尽管审计师可能已经做好自认为是其分内的工作，但依旧需要承担相应的责任。
Critics scoff that bringing a case against auditors is so hard that this is not a real risk: federal courts in America are increasingly likely to throw out claims against auditors. But PwC’s Colonial Bank case shows that firms can still be on the hook for large amounts. Mr Peterson reckons that penalties totalling more than $3bn in a year could sink one of the Big Four, with disruption spilling over to the surviving three, and to capital markets.
批评家们也讥讽地说，要起诉审计师太不容易了，但也并不是要真正冒风险，美国联邦法院越来越有可能追究审计师的责任。但从普华永道的殖民银行审计案件中可看出，公司仍有可能面临陷入巨额审计诉讼的困境。彼德森由此估计出，一年内总额超过30亿美元的罚款所带来的影响可能会让四大中的一家破产，也会殃及幸存的三所，甚至扰乱整个资本市场。
With litigation and reputational risks hanging over the sector, investing in the profession becomes less attractive. Competitors continue to find it extremely hard to dislodge the Big Four: on March 29th Grant Thornton, the fifth-largest audit firm in Britain, said it would cease bidding for audit work at FTSE 350 firms until there is a “shift in the competitive landscape”. Some British firms have already seen a rise in the number of senior partners fleeing for the safety of consulting and finance jobs, or even early retirement. If talent drains away, the bar set by public expectations will be even harder for auditors to reach.
审计行业正面临诉讼声誉受损的风险，致使其业内投资吸引力减弱。然而，同业竞争者们发现要驱逐四大仍绝非易事。3月29日，英国第五大审计公司均富集团(Grant Thornton)表示，其将退出对富时350指数公司（FTSE 350 firms ）竞标，除非“竞争格局”转变。一些英国公司已发觉越来越多的高级合伙人都正追求咨询和金融工作低风险性，甚至提前退休。这样一来，若是人才流失，审计公司将更难达到公众心目中的期望值。
翻译组：
Neil, 男，外贸民工，经济学人铁粉
Olivia，女，教育行业，经济学人粉丝
Fiona， 女 ，教雅思的民工， 经济学人粉丝
Lucia ，女，翻译学硕士三年制，经济学人粉丝
校核组：
Leon，男，金融硕士在读，经济学人粉丝
Jasmine， 女 ，税收专业， 经济学人粉丝
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观点|评论|思考
本次观点由Alan全权执笔
Alan，男，金融工程硕士，经济学人粉丝
2001年的安然事件震惊了整个金融市场，随后为安然审计的安达信被诉妨碍司法公正因此倒闭，由此又引出了另一电信巨头世通公司的丑闻，随后世通破产，取代安然成为史上最大倒闭案，安达信遭遇拆分。
审计的过去就是一部针对其天然的利益冲突斗争与反斗争的历史。公司高管想要更丰厚的薪水奖金，审计人员希望更高的审计费用，而为了帮助客户满足执法部门要求，对金钱的渴望总是引诱着精通税务的高级审计师们为客户提供各种灰色地带的可能性。
审计的主观性也是审计工作常让人怀疑的原因。项目的审计目标经常会有不一致，而这又是由审计环境所决定，本身就是相对主观的判断，而审计过程中林林总总的主观性注定了审计意见常常存在巨大的弹性。审计本质作为一项帮助被审公司的服务，与卖方研究报告一样，更多被润色而非给出独立公允意见。
拆分四大税务所并不能改善审计天然的利益冲突。反而可能会因为更加激烈的竞争引发更显著的道德风险。所以审计公司和银行一样，同样需要更少的竞争来增加利润从而减少金融脆弱性。Regulator应该更加注重量化审计工作中的主观性，使其报告呈现更多客观性，同时要求审计公司出具更多对不能客观陈述的部分详细意见，才能让审计工作更加透明化。
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愿景
小组
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