THE ROLE OF AUDIT IN IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF INFORMATION PRESENTED IN THE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

The general objective of financial statements is to provide information about the financial position, performance and cash flows of an enterprise that is useful for a wide range of users in making economic of business decisions. The financial statements also present the results of resources management by the company’s management. For this reason, financial statements prepared and published by organizations are of interest for a wide range of users: investors, managers, employees, customers, creditors, bankers, government and its institutions, citizens. Experience has shown explicitly that there is a conflict of interest between those who collect, process and agregate accounting information and the information users. Often, users show a lack of confidence in accounting information, because the users who produce this information usually are not independent from the operations and the situations presented. Possible major economic consequences that may result have determined as necessary interposing financial auditors with the main objective of increasing credibility of the financial statements published by companies.