It is a well-known fact that
auditing is essential for any financial reporting framework to show the
authenticity and correctness of financial figures, which are shared with the
public. So, it is vital to make this profession strong and more relevant in various
terms so that everyone knows the importance of the audit profession. The other
important thing to keep in mind is that audits should be independent, without
having an influence or pressure from any source. The Australian government has
understood the importance of the Audit profession so they have over sighted the
profession to develop into a profession, which has more regulations and options
to stay on the right track. Various elements have been over sighted recently
such as monitoring the independence of auditors, which means that auditors
should have an element of independence from any personal, financial, or
client’s pressures. Moreover, the auditor should have a good enough competence
level so that he/she can adopt the ethics and professionalism of the auditing
profession without compromising on anything. He should have all the knowledge
and experience to follow relevant auditing processes and procedures. Moreover,
it was reviewed to develop more discipline for auditors to work in line with
the given guidelines (Australian Government - The Treasury, 2002)
The big data is being generated in
an enormous amount, and its numbers are increasing with the passage of time.
So, when such a huge amount of data is available, it is vital for countries and
other stakeholders to prepare for the future, where big data analytics has
paramount importance. Big data analytics can help in providing great insights
by uncovering some hidden patterns, which can be used to make a future strategy.
Such future strategy and decision making will be more informed on the basis of
big data analytics. It has been observed that the auditing profession is also
being transformed with the help of big data analytics. However, big data is
also a problem for auditors to handle so much information at one point of time
to get useful insights, as well as, making auditing process a clean one without
any ambiguities. The technology is still in the early days for auditors to
handle big data for auditing, but things will get better with the passage of
time if the government will continue to take adequate measures (EY Reporting, 2015)
Before comparing the auditing
profession in Australia and Saudi Arabia, it is vital to know that Saudi Arabia
has been a bit behind in this regard, but they have made a lot of reforms in
the recent times to get their auditing standards up to very high standards. Saudi
Arabia has realized the fact that eternal and independent audit is
indispensable to make improvements in the framework of financial reporting,
otherwise vague and wrong auditing information can lead to misperception of the
financial market. So, whatever differences were there as compared to the
developed world like Australia, or whatever was lacking on part of Saudi
Arabia, they are making sure to get their auditing profession to a level, where
they can be compared with countries like Australia in high quality and
standards, and this is the way forward for them to move in a right direction (Bahrawe, Haron, & Hasan, 2016)
References of Development & Regulation of Audit Profession in Australia
Australian Government - The Treasury. (2002). Part
2- Oversight of the auditing profession. Retrieved May 15, 2020, from
https://treasury.gov.au/publication/clerp-paper-no-9-proposals-for-reform-corporate-disclosure/part-2-oversight-of-the-auditing-profession
Bahrawe, S. H., Haron, M. H., & Hasan, A. B.
(2016). Corporate Governance and Auditor Independence in Saudi
Arabia:Literature Review and Proposed Conceptual Framework. International
Business Research, 9(11).
EY Reporting. (2015). How big data and analytics
are transforming the audit. Retrieved May 15, 2020, from
https://www.ey.com/en_lb/assurance/how-big-data-and-analytics-are-transforming-the-audit