Statutory Audit: Benefits of Maintaining Audits after the Abolishment

Auditing developed during the past hundred years and today consists of an auditor’s audit of a firm’s annual reports. When an auditor has reviewed a firm’s accounts, s/he establishes an audit report. An audit is executed to provide the owners and other stakeholders a true and fair view of the firm

Purpose: The purpose of this research is to explore the reasons behind the abolishment of statutory audit in small limited firms in Sweden and to discuss whether it would be beneficial for these firms to still maintain an audit of their business after the abolishment.

Contents: Statutory Audit- Benefits of Maintaining Audits after the Abolishment

1 Introduction
1.1 Background
1.2 Problem discussion
1.3 Purpose
1.4 Perspective and Delimitation
1.5 Research question
1.6 Abbreviations
1.7 Definitions
1.7.1 Qualified accountant
1.7.2 Chartered accountant
1.7.3 Swedish definition of small firms
1.7.4 Swedish definition of Micro firms
1.7.5 Previous Swedish definition of small firms
1.8 Dispostion
2 Method
2.1 Choice of subject
2.2 Research approach
2.2.1 Deductive
2.2.2 Inductive
2.3 Research strategy
2.3.1 Exploratory studies
2.3.2 Explanatory studies
2.4 Choice of method
2.5 Collection of data
2.5.1 Primary data
2.5.2 Interviews
2.5.3 Secondary data
2.5.4 Literature
2.5.5 Previous studies
2.6 Critique of sources
2.7 Research credibility
2.7.1 Validity
2.7.2 Reliability
3 Frame of reference
3.1 Accounting and Audit
3.1.1 Requirements to maintain accounting records
3.1.2 Auditing
3.2 Limited firms
3.3 A firm’s stakeholders
3.3.1 Stakeholder model theory
3.4 Statutory audit in other European Union Countries
3.4.1 The Council of Ministers
3.4.2 United Kingdom
3.4.3 Denmark
3.5 Advantages of auditing
3.6 Disadvantages of auditing
3.7 Agency theory
3.8 Previous research
3.8.1 Thorell and Norberg: “Statutory Audit in Small Limited Firms.”
3.8.2 Lindholm and Sagefors: ”Statutory audit, the opinion of small business owners?”
4 Analysis in relation to each stakeholder
4.1 Owners & Management
4.2 Creditors
4.3 Government
4.4 Suppliers
4.5 Customers
5 Conclusion
5.1 Future studies…