Research On The Impact Of COVID-19 On The Audit Behavior Of Certified Public Accountants

As the independent subject of financial report authentication,certified public accountant should not only keep customers but also maintain audit quality.The full implementation of audit procedures is a necessary measure to ensure audit quality and reduce audit risks.However,during the audit of the 2019 annual report,the outbreak of COVID-19 and the strict restrictions of epidemic prevention measures made the audit environment more complex and the selection of audit procedures diversified.What audit behavior and professional judgment CPA chooses will have a certain impact on the audit quality.First of all,strict epidemic prevention measures limit the development of CPA’s on-site audit work,and it is doubtful whether the audit task can be completed on time.CPA faces the contradiction between audit time pressure and audit procedure selection.Secondly,in the audit process,certified public accountants may face the use of unconventional audit methods,especially remote audit and other methods.The use and understanding pressure of information technology will also affect the choice of audit procedures for certified public accountants.Furthermore,the development of relevant training may reduce the pressure on CPA to use and understand unconventional audit methods,thus affecting the selection of audit procedures for CPA.If the certified public accountants can not deal with the above contradictions,there may be audit behaviors that reduce the audit quality and affect the audit quality.Therefore,in view of the impact of Covid-19 pneumonia on disease behaviour,a review by certified auditors was carried out,especially those audit behaviors that reduce audit quality,this paper analyzes the possible impact path,and puts forward suggestions to deal with the normalization of the epidemic,reduce the audit behavior of certified public accountants that reduce audit quality,and ensure audit quality.The research object of this study is 243 certified public accountants and relevant personnel in our country,the use of class situation questionnaire,investigation in 2019 during the annual audit work of CPA to reduce audit quality behavior occurrence conditions,and build a structural equation model analysis whether by time pressure,information technology,training and other factors influence the behavior.Further,based on the results of the study,SPSS and AMOS were used to quantitatively analyze the collected questionnaire data and verify the pre-determined research hypotheses.According to the analysis results,some suggestions are put forward to reduce CPA’s behavior of reducing audit quality in response to major public health emergencies.Conclusion shows:(1)due to the effects of COVID-19,CPA’s audit quality decreased during the 2019 annual report audit process.(2)Due to the impact of COVID-19,CPA performance is under great time pressure;In the process of audit,more information technology means are used,and the use of information technology means will contribute to the development of audit work;We also recognize the need for training on COVID-19.(3)Time pressure has a significant positive impact on CPA’s behavior of reducing audit quality,while information technology,training and other factors have a significant negative impact on CPA’s behavior of reducing audit quality.(4)Time pressure has a partial mediating effect on the influence path of information technology on the occurrence of CPA’s audit behavior that reduces audit quality.Therefore,accounting firms should make use of new information technology means to improve the data collection and analysis end,and timely carry out theme training,enhance the ability of certified public accountants to cope with,to reduce the occurrence of certified public accountants to reduce audit quality of audit behavior,audit quality assurance is of great significance.