The expanded audit report ‐ a research study within the development of SAS 600

Reports research results which were presented to the Working Party of the Auditing Practices Board, which developed Statement of Auditing Standards 600 on the expansion of the audit report. Provides a brief discussion of the working party’s reception of the research. Results revealed that, with the short audit report used in the UK until September 1993, a gap existed between auditors and users with 14 of the 18 audit dimensions having statistically significant differences. An expanded audit report (a British version of SAS 58 constructed by the authors) changed users’ perceptions although ten of these 18 dimensions still had statistically significant differences between the users and the auditors. Expansion of the audit report is only a partial “solution” and needs to be combined with other measures, such as changing audit activities. An analysis of the dimensions for which users’ perceptions of the audit are enhanced shows that expansion of the audit report allows the audit profession to enhance its status without any change in actual audit activities or auditor accountability.