Improving audit quality still a major challenge: Minister

A new guidebook on accounting and productivity by CPA Australia and the SMU School of Accountancy states that, if productivity improvements are the end goal, firms may end up compromising audit quality. One of the authors, Associate Professor Themin Suwardy of SMU said, "Having less staff, paying less attention to service levels and auditing standards, taking shortcuts with professional duties and ethics, and not investing in training and continuous professional development, would increase short-term productivity but at the cost of audit quality."