분반기검토시간이 감사시차에 미치는 영향

The Effect of Interim Review on Audit Delay

분반기검토제도는 기말감사의 효율성을 향상시켜 회계품질을 높이고 시장반응을 개선하는 효과가 관찰되어왔다. 하지만 분반기검토제도가 감사시차에 미치는 영향에 관해서는 연구가 드문 편인데, 소수의 초기 연구들은 유의한 관계를 발견하지 못했다. 그러나 2014년부터 적용된 신감사기준 하에서 위험중심 접근법으로의 변경은 감사인에게 분반기검토를 기말감사와 통합하여 전략적으로 접근할 동기를 부여한다. 본 연구에서는 분반기검토제도가 감사시차에 미치는 영향을 2014년에서 2016년 3개년의 직급별감사시간 자료를 이용하여 실증하였다. 연구 결과는 다음과 같다. 첫째, 분반기검토시간은 감사시차에 유의한 음(-)의 관계를 나타냈다. 이는 분반기 시점에서의 회계적 이슈 파악 또는 해소가 기말입증감사의 효율성을 향상시킬 것이라는 제도 도입시의 기대와 일치하는 결과이다. 둘째, 직급별로는 전문가시간을 제외한 모든 직급에서 유의한 음(-)의 관계가 나타나, 상위직급일수록 효과가 잘 나타날 것이라는 기대와 일치하지는 않았다. 셋째, 감사인별로는 big 외에도 non-big에서도 음(-)의 효과가 잘 나타나, 감사품질을 개선할 동기가 있는 big에서 효과가 더 잘 나타날 것이라는 일반적인 기대와 일치하지는 않았다. 추가분석으로 분반기검토시간이 기말감사시간에 미치는 영향 및 기말감사시간이 감사시차에 미치는 영향은 각각 양(+)으로 나타났으며, 기말감사시간은 분반기검토와 감사시차 사이에 매개효과를 일으켰다. 또한 기말감사시간이 높은 분위일 때 분반기검토시간과 기말감사시간 사이의 양(+)의 관계가 강해지고, 기말감사시간과 감사시차 사이의 양(+)의 관계는 사라지며, 이 경우 분반기검토시간이 감사시차를 감소시키는 본 연구의 주 분석이 유의하게 나타났다. 반면 기말감사시간이 낮은 분위에서는 분반기검토의 감사시차 감소 효과가 나타나지 않았다. 이는 많은 기말감사시간이 투입이 예측되어 감사효율성에 대한 필요성이 제기되는 환경에서 감사인은 분반기검토제도를 적극 활용하여 감사시차를 억제한다는 것으로 해석된다. 분반기검토제도의 효과를 실증한 본 연구결과는 감사시차가 감사효율성 외에도 보고의 적시성과도 관련된다는 면에서 분반기검토제도와 관련된 규제의 방향을 제시하는 함의가 있다고 본다.

This study investigates the relationship between interim review and audit delay. Regulators and researchers have expected that the interim reviews may improve the efficiency of year-end audits; therefore, year-end audit hours and audit delay may be decreased. The main reason is that a timely review allows the company’s accounting process to be completed when it happens without putting off to a year-end time. Because the review processes has some similarities to the audits except the test procedures, an auditor with a holistic and systemic approach will link interim review to her year-end audit, which enhances overall audit efficiency. The empirical findings that interim audit reduced year-end audit hours and audit delay may give a hint to the efficiency effect of interim review. Academic researches have studied the effects of interim reviews on market responses and accounting transparency. North American and European researchers have reported the significant effects mainly on the market responses such as value relevance, abnormal returns, or trade volumes while the effects on the accounting transparency has been inconclusive. In contrast, many Korean studies discovered not only the market effects but also the accounting transparency effects such as discretionary accruals and conservatism. However, the common feature of the two regional studies is that studies on the effects of interim review on audit delay are rare. As one of the exceptional studies, Ettredge et al. (2000a) reported a partial and insignificant result. As one of the other exceptions, Kang and Kim (2007) also failed to find a significant relationship between interim review and audit delay. The problem of the two studies for current application is their research periods. The data collected and used in Ettredge et al. (2000a) was from the 1980s when no reviews on the interim reporting was required. Kang and Kim (2007)’s samples was collected during the transition period in which Korean regulation just introduced the mandatory review system. Moreover, from 2014 the new audit standard (ISA 300) is in effect. Because the new regulation requires auditors to select risk-based approach instead of traditional transaction-based approach, the importance of the interim-period analysis is increased. Therefore, we may expect that the relationship between interim review and audit delay becomes significant. Using the 3,378 mandatory per-rank-audit-hour reports from 2014 to 2016, we tested the relationships in detail. Our empirical findings are as such. First, we discovered that the interim review hours reduce audit delay, consistent with the regulators’ and researchers’ anticipations. Second, this negative relationship holds for all ranks except specialists. Third, there are no differences between big and non-big auditors, contrary to the general expectation from former studies about the big-non big differences. We also discovered positive relationships between interim review hours and year-end audit hours, and between year-end audit hours and audit delay. To reconcile the two positive results with the negative relationship between the interim review and audit delay, which is our main finding, we performed additional tests. First, we tested a possible systemic relationships among interim review hours, year-end audit hours, and audit delay. We found that, first, audit hours works as a mediator between interim review and audit delay; second, the effectiveness of interim reviews on audit delay occurs only when the level of year-end audit hours are high. This means that an auditor may need audit efficiency when a high level of effort is required; and as a result the relationship between interim review and audit delay becomes meaningful. Finally, we found that our conclusions does not change after we control the endogeniety.