미청구공사 계정금액이 신용등급과 감사인의 감사시간 및 감사보수에 미치는 영향

The Effect of the Unbilled Revenue on a Firm’s Credit Rating and Audit Hours and Audit Fees

미청구공사 계정금액은 시공회사가 공사수익은 인식하였으나 발주처에 청구하지 않은 공사대금으로 시공회사의 자산으로 인식되어 있지만 아직 대금이 회수되지 않은 미수채권으로 추후 상당부분이 손실로 처리될 가능성이 높은 위험자산이다. 미청구공사계정이 위험자산으로 인식되는 이유는 매출 채권에 비해 회수기간이 더 걸릴 뿐만 아니라 매출채권은 충담금의 규모를 통해 위험여부를 어느 정도 파악할 수 있는 반면, 미청구공사 계정금액은 현행 회계기준에서 회수가능성이 낮은 금액을 차감한 후 인식하도록 하고 있어 충당금을 별도로 인식하지 않기 때문에 충당금의 규모를 통한 위험성 판단 자체가 불가능하기 때문이다. 또한 발주처의 확인 없이 시공회사가 진행기준에 따라 인식한 자산이기 때문에 발주처의 재무제표에는 부채로 나타나지 않는다. 그러나 시공회사의 원가투입 시점과 발주처의 기성 인정 시점의 차이, 조선업계의 heavy-tail 지급 방식 등에 따라 정상적인 상황에서도 공정초기에 미청구공사 계정금액이 증가할 수 있음에도 최근 일부 건설･조선기업에서 발생한 대규모의 손실이 미청구공사계정과 관련됨에 따라 재무제표에 미청구 공사계정을 인식하고 있는 건설･조선업의 기업 모두가 부정적으로 평가되고 있다. 따라서 본 연구를 통해 재무제표에 인식된 미청구공사금액이 상대적으로 큰 건설･조선업종을 대상으로 재무제표 해석에 있어 전문성을 보유한 신용평가기관과 외부감사인의 미청구공사계정에 대한 인식을 확인하기 위하여 자산에서 차지하는 미청구공사 계정금액의 비중과 신용등급, 감사시간, 감사보수의 관계를 순위로짓분석과 회귀분석을 통해 실증분석 하였다.분석결과, 첫째, 미청구공사계정의 비중과 신용등급은 음(-)의 관계임을 확인하였다. 이는 신용평가 기관이 미청구공사계정의 존재를 부정적으로 인식하여 자산에서 차지하는 미청구공사 계정금액의 비중이 클수록 해당기업의 신용등급 결정에 부정적으로 반영하고 있음을 의미한다. 둘째, 미청구공사 계정금액과 감사시간, 감사보수는 양(+)의 관계임을 확인하였다. 이는 외부감사인이 미청구공사계정의 자산성을 부정적으로 인식하여 자산 대비 미청구공사 계정금액의 비중이 클수록 이의 자산성을 확인 하기 위하여 감사투입 시간을 늘리고, 그에 따라 감사보수 또한 증가하는 것으로 해석된다.

Since the introduction of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in 2011, unbilled revenue account appears as an asset on the financial statements of order-based production industries such as construction and shipbuilding firms, which prepare financial statements based on the percentage-of-completion method. This unbilled revenue account is an uncollected receivable which has not yet been billed to the client. Although recognized as an asset by construction and shipbuilding firms, it is risky due to a high possibility of significant portions being written off as losses in the near future. Unbilled revenue account is classified as a high risk asset due to the following reasons. First, unbilled revenue account takes longer to collect compared to trade receivable. Second, it is impossible to determine the risk involved in unbilled revenue by considering the size of its allowance. For trade receivable, firms are required to put allowances in case payments are not collected. Thus, the risk involved can be estimated by the amount of allowances. Firms do not separately list the allowance for the unbilled revenue because current accounting standards require the unbilled revenue to be recognized as an asset after deducting the amount that is least expected to be collected. Hence, it is impossible to estimate the risk of the unbilled revenue based on the size of its allowance. Furthermore, unbilled revenue is recognized as an asset arbitrarily by the construction firm based on the percentage-of completion method without verification from the client. Thus, the financial statement of the client does not define the unbilled amount as a liability. Since the existence of the amount of the unbilled revenue is not determined by confirmation of the client, unbilled revenue is highly prone to audit failures. As firms in the order-based industries recently announce large sums of unexpected losses, the transparency in accounting for such firms are being questioned. This refers to the problem where the amount in unbilled revenue account increases continuously until it suddenly faces a loss at a particular point of time. This results in increased distrust towards the accounting information produced by the order-based production industries and deterioration of investor protection. However, the amount of unbilled revenue account may increase in the early stages of the construction even under the normal circumstances, depending on the time difference between the cost spent by the construction company and the client’s approval of the construction progress, and the heavy-tail payment method of the shipbuilding industry. Nevertheless, as the losses incurred by the companies in order-based production industry are related to unbilled revenue accounts, all construction and shipbuilding companies that show unbilled revenue accounts in their financial statements are evaluated negatively. Unbilled revenue account is one of the asset accounts in financial statements which are prepared by applying the percentage-of-completion method. It is different from the financial statements prepared by commercial enterprises because concepts including planned total construction cost, the percentage of completion of construction based on the cost spent, and actual rate of construction progress are applied. So, it is relatively difficult for users who lack in-depth accounting knowledge to comprehend. Thus, we have conducted empirical research on how the credit rating agencies and external auditors known to have expertise in interpretation of financial statements accept the unbilled revenue of construction and shipbuilding industries which have relatively large amounts of unbilled revenue included in their financial statements. The findings of this study are as follows. In order to examine the perception of the credit rating agencies on unbilled revenue, this study has conducted both Logit and OLS regressions using credit ratings as a dependent vari