Professional ethics in audit

By Muhammad Momin 21397

Professional ethics are a set of moral principle and standards of conduct, supporting the moral prestige
of professional groups in society. The tasks of professional ethics are to identify the moral standards and
assessment, judgment and concept characterizing people as the representative of a particular
profession. Professional ethics develops norms, standards, requirements, typical to certain activities

Professional ethics is an important part of auditing process. Professional ethics refers to professionalism,
business behavior, and ethical values. For an auditor it is necessary to be professional ethical in his work.
the audit opinion he gives should be ethically valid. Internal auditing is an autonomous, impartial activity
of assurance and consultation intended to add value and optimize the practices of an entity. By bringing
a comprehensive, disciplined approach to evaluating and maximizing the efficacy of risk assessment,
monitoring, and governance systems, it lets a company meet its objectives. A code of ethics is necessary
and appropriate for the profession of internal auditing, founded as it is on the trust placed in its
objective assurance about fraud.

For an auditor the code of ethics can be divided into 4 broad categories.

Firstly, integrity of a person is that he should up trust in himself that his judgement is reliable enough.
The auditor must perform his work with honestly and responsibility. His must does all his action under
the umbrella of rules and regulation. When the auditor sees any illegal activity, he shall report the fraud
not being part of illegal activity himself. Lastly he should value the ethical values of the organization

Secondly, objectivity of an auditor means that the auditor must not have his own interest involved in
evaluating, gathering and analyzing information. He must be complete independent and must show
professionalism in whatever he does. He must not enter into any kind of relationship which cause the
audit to be biases. Or may conflict with the interest of the organization. He shall not accept anything
that may impair their professional judgement. And lastly shall not disclose any kind of material facts that
may distort the reporting activities under review.

Thirdly and most importantly, auditor have access to some confidential information of the company, as
the company has to disclose all its information to the auditor. So auditor ethics is not to disclose any
kind of that information outside of the company of anyone without any kind of authority unless he has
any legal obligation to do so. The auditor must protect the information he had acquired in the process of
his audit. He should not use this information for any of his or other personal gain. That will be contrary
to the law and ethical objectives of the organization.

Last but not the least competency principle in another code of ethics that the auditor must use all of his
skills and knowledge to provide auditing service. The auditor must only engage those works In which
they have command of or we can see have knowledge and skills of. A auditor with less knowledge and
skills of certain service may not provide efficient auditing service. The auditor must follow all his audit in
the shadow on international standards such as IFRS and ISA’s. lastly they shall continuously improve the
proficiency and effectiveness of their services.