Research On The Impact Of Auditor's Supplier And Customer Characteristics On Audit Fees

Suppliers and customers are important stakeholders of enterprises.Suppliers provide production resources for enterprises by providing raw materials or semi-finished products,and customers create cash flow and profits for enterprises by purchasing products or services.Both of them have a significant impact on enterprises.Moreover,with the development of supply chain management,the relationship between enterprises and its suppliers and customers is becoming more closer.When auditing,certified public accountants(CPAs)need to understand the auditee and its environment,including key suppliers,customers and supply chain changes.It can be seen that the characteristics of suppliers and customers of listed companies will affect the audit decisions of CPAs.At present,the standards of audit fees in China's audit market are not unified.Therefore,from the perspective of enterprise' suppliers and customers,this paper studies how the concentration characteristics and stability characteristics of enterprises' suppliers and customers affect audit fees respectively.Based on reviewing the existing research results at home and abroad,the paper using the modern risk-oriented audit theory and supply chain management theory,analyzes the concentration,stability characteristics of the suppliers and customers influence on audit fees.And then,put forward the research hypothesis and build multiple regression models,with 2014 to 2018,the Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share manufacturing listed companies as the research objects for empirical testing.The research finds that :(1)the concentration characteristic of suppliers and customers is high,and the audit fee determined by CPAs is low;and this is true for both "concentrated" and "unconcentrated" situations.(2)suppliers and customers have strong stability,and audit fee determined by CPAs is high;moreover,by analyzing the two sub-samples of "stable" and "unstable",it is found that the charging level is lower when "unstable",and the above conclusion is still valid when "stable".In addition,the positive correlation between stability and the audit fee is still valid when considering comprehensively concentration and stability.(3)compared with the cycle of purchase and payment,CPAs pay more attention to the cycle of sales and collection,which conforms to the law of audit risk.The results show that CPAs pay attention to the characteristics of suppliers and customers and comply with the requirements of audit standards when determining audit fees.Based on the empirical test results,this paper puts forward countermeasures and suggestions from two aspects: certified public accountants and listed companies.The innovations of this paper are to study the impact of the stability characteristics of enterprises' suppliers and customers on audit fees,and to analyze the research hypothesis with modern risk-oriented audit theory.