Auditors do not prepare books. They are watchdogs not bloodhoods.

C&P from isaca.org....

More than 100 years have elapsed since the Court of Appeal in England delivered a landmark judgment in the Kingston Cotton Mills case.

The facts were reasonably simple and not contended by the parties. The company's managing director, who subsequently confessed the frauds he committed, had falsified its accounts.

In particular, the quantities and value of the company's stock had been falsified for many years but there was nothing on the face of the accounts to excite suspicion. It was suggested to the court that the auditor should not have relied solely on the representation of the managing director and should have further investigated the matter.

In a unanimous judgment, the three Lord Justices reversed the decision of the lower court and found in favor of the auditor:


"It is the duty of an auditor to bring to bear on the work he has to perform that skill, care, and caution which a reasonably competent, careful, and cautious auditor would use.
An auditor is not bound to be a detective, or, as was said, to approach his work with suspicion, or with a foregone conclusion that there is something wrong. He is a watchdog, but not a bloodhound.
Auditors must not be made liable for not tracking out ingenious and carefully laid schemes of fraud, when there is nothing to arouse their suspicion ...So to hold would make the position of an auditor intolerable."

—Lord Justice Lopes

Regarding Kingston Cotton Mills (1896) 1

Any auditors in the house,please justify your work

So what is the work of the auditor? To rubber-stamp results and then to change the headline of company's colorful financial statement from "Unaudited results" to "Audited results"? Even me with no accounting, I can do that with MS Word. Just tell me where to rubber stamp and I will charge only half price.

seems like in kenya we then need both 'audited returns' and 'forensic-audited returns'.

Britam are hiring:
Forensic Auditor