The Client Acceptance and Retention Process: How Policies and Procedures Are Developed and Implemented Within Audit Firms

When developing client acceptance and retention policies and procedures, an audit firm's policy-makers are required to adhere to quality control and auditing standards established by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) and American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) that are not well defined. As a result, the policies and procedures across firms may differ significantly. These differences arise from the development as well as the implementation of client acceptance and retention policies when evaluating prospective and continuing clients. My research study examines these differences in client acceptance and retention policies and procedures and also investigates the potential differences in policies and procedures across firms of different sizes (international, national, and regional). Using a qualitative setting, I interview risk management and local office partners across multiple firms to gather firm-specific and partner-specific information about client acceptance and retention policies and procedures. My results contribute to the existing literature on the processes and procedures developed by audit firms to assess and evaluate risks that may arise from prospective and/or continuing clients.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Accounting and Information Systems

Department dc:contributor.department

Accounting and Information Systems

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Parlier, Jennifer Ashley

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Jenkins, James G.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Bhattacharjee, Sudip
• Gendron, Yves
• Foti, Roseanne J.
• Smith, Kecia Williams

• Audit Firm Policies
• Audit Firm Procedures
• Client Acceptance
• Client Continuance
• Client Reacceptance
• Client Retention
• Risk Management

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

vt_gsexam:21453

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/90369