Do auditors make mistakes when they write audit reports? An empirical study applied to Spanish non-listed firms

The objective of this paper is to analyse whether auditors comply with the standards currently in force when writing audit reports in Spain. We try to obtain evidence for the relationship of the errors contained in the report with the type of opinion figuring in it, and with the auditor issuing it. This study is based on a sample of 1236 reports selected by the stratified random sampling method, for the period 2004–2007. Once we had defined the dependent variable, the number of errors committed in the report, the independent variables, the type of auditor and type of opinion, we tested the hypotheses by means of a regression analysis with the aim of estimating the average number of errors that can be found in a report according to the variables described. The results obtained permit us to conclude that reports with a qualified opinion contain a greater number of errors, and that they are committed to a greater extent by individual auditors than by companies and by multinationals.