Determinantes da divulgação dos principais assuntos de auditoria no Brasil e os fatores que afetam o julgamento do auditor independente

Abstract

With NBC TA 701 in effect since 2016, independent auditors in Brazil now include a section entitled 'Key Audit Matters (KAM)' in their reports, portraying the matters that were most significant or complex during the audit and which demanded greater effort and attention from the auditors. The choice of these matters may be related to the characteristics of the auditing firm or the client itself, and may involve subjectivity on the part of the auditor, and the disclosure of these matters may be considered relevant information to stakeholders. In this sense, this research aimed to investigate the determinants of disclosure of the key audit matters in Brazil and which factors affect the independent auditor's judgment. Twenty-one variables were raised in the literature that represent characteristics of the audit firm or audited entity and presented to 25 experts through the first round of the Delphi Technique, so that they could assess them and suggest new ones. In the second round, the 12 suggestions were added and evaluated by the experts, reaching a consensus among them, using the Coefficient of Variation below 30% as a parameter. Subsequently, data was collected from the variables of 309 non financial companies listed in B3 between 2016 to 2020. 3,659 KAM were identified in the analysis of 1,449 audit reports, with an average between 2 and 3 KAM per report, with a downward trend throughout the period studied. The KAM were categorized into 30 themes and it was observed that the most recurrent were related to Contingencies and Provisions, Revenue Recognition and Impairment of Non-Financial Assets. Then, the KAM were classified by their nature, being related to entity risk (PAA_RE) or account risk (PAA_RC), and considered as dependent variables together with the total KAM for estimating 3 data models in dynamic panel (GMM), which included 6 variables suggested by the experts, besides de variables from literature: amount of KAM disclosed in the previous report (KAM t-1), modified audit opinion in the previous year (OPN_ANT), existence of Administrative Sanctioning Process at CVM (PAS), indication of significant internal control deficiencies by the auditor (DEF_CI), business combination in the period (COMB_NEG) and Goodwill (GOODW). The results show that the number of disclosed KAM is negatively affected by BIG4, SET_REG and OPN, and positively by KAM (t-1) and TAM. With respect to KAM_RE, they are negatively affected by BIG4, ESP_AUD and OPN, and positively by KAM_RE (t-1), TR_AUD, OPN_ANT, DEF_CI and COMB_NEG. About KAM_RC, they are negatively affected by ESP_AUD and CPLEX, and positively by KAM_RC (t-1), AUD_FEE, TR_AUD, TAM, PREJ and COMB_NEG. Through an interview conducted with 7 experts, it was possible to understand the relationship between the disclosure of the KAM and the significant variables in the study, and also that the selection of the KAM is a cyclical process carried out in 4 main phases that starts from the moment of the client acceptance, when the auditor performs the global risk measurement until the inclusion of the KAM in the report, whose disclosure can affect the auditor's decision in the selection of the KAM for the following period, corroborating the results found in the econometric models. In addition, there are also 6 components that affect the auditor's judgment related to the professional profile, the engagement of the auditors, the risk for the auditor, the auditor's assumptions, the details of transactions and the overall risk of the entity, concluding that the disclosure of KAM by the independent auditor is strongly related to risk factors of the entity and also of the auditor, leading him to disclose matters that protect them from future problems with the audited entity and stakeholders, fulfilling its role already enunciated by the Agency Theory.