INTERNAL AUDIT CHARACTERISTICS AND QUALITY OF ACCOUNTING INFORMATION IN NIGERIA

The basic goal of Accounting is to provide enabling accounting information for reliable decision-making. The quality level of this accounting information comes from the company's governance practices, thereby emphasizing the importance of corporate governance in companies. Recently, following the financial crises resulting in accounting scandals, attention has been moving towards Internal Audit Function as an important factor in the structure of Corporate Governance. This paper therefore examined the extent of the relationship between internal audit function and the quality of accounting information of companies. The study adopted the Survey research design. The research instrument employed was Questionnaire which was administered to internal auditors of the “Big Four”. Linear regression analysis was employed in the analysis of the data collected with the use of Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS). The results revealed that there is a significant relationship between the internal audit characteristics and the quality of accounting information. It was recommended that in order to provide credibility to the financial statement, there should be a law in place mandating attachment of internal auditors report to the financial statemen

Pushing for Joint Audit in Nigeria

This study examines whether the decision to engage two audit firms to conduct a joint audit would be associated with audit quality and earnings quality. The data on the perception of accounting academics and professionals was gathered through the use of a structured questionnaire. Analyses were carried out using Mean and ANOVA methods tested at 5% significance level. The Findings revealed that the engagement of joint auditors would not contribute positively to audit quality, higher earnings quality and would increase the cost of audit. It was therefore recommended that a voluntary joint audit would be a strategy to promote compliance with the regulations, build capacity of small and medium-sized practitioners, raise the quality of financial reporting and increase the confidence of investors and the general public