Who Audits your Auditors?

At the end of every Financial Year, all companies are statutorily required to turn over the financial statements to Auditors to perform an audit. This is a requirement that cuts across every business, country, continent around the world. As such Audit firms are a part of our everyday business life. We cannot do without them. They know our financial secrets and have the powers to either confirm or deny the fairness, completeness and accuracy of our financial statements. Ironically we pay them to do just that.

Curiously, you may wonder whether the auditors themselves get audited, after all they are entities and have owners and stakeholders who are interested in how they perform. The answer is yes and no. Auditors that are registered as a Partnership mostly do not have auditors. However, Auditors that are registered as Companies must have auditors as well. In addition to that, they must make sure that they do not audit the firms that audit them to avoid any form of conflict of interest. Using a screen shot, here is a list of the top 20 Audit Firms and their Auditors;