Examining Factors Affecting Audit Fees for Documents and Evidence from Voluntary Referral Departments in Iran

Abstract

Nowadays, responsiveness of corporate executives, organizations and their supervision are essential due to the increase in trading volumes, and therefore the users of financial statements, and also the users’ need for assurance about the reliability of the financial statements for making decision. One of the main tools for accountability in the field of economic activities is auditing and accounting, because the auditor's certificate supports the credit of additional financial statements from users. But, despite the need for audit work and increasing demand for it, determining the fees of this service in Iran is not based on the scientific model. Since the appropriate factors must first be identified to determine the appropriate level of fees, therefore, this research investigated the factors affecting audit fees. The objective of this study is to understand how to determine the audit fees in Iran logically. Identified factors studied in this study are the size of firm, complication of the firm's operations, the amount of resources spent on the internal auditor and risk detection by the auditor. The data of this research was obtained from the information about the companies accepted in Tehran Stock Exchange for a consecutive period from 2010 to 2015. Among all the companies, 80 companies active in the Tehran Stock Exchange were selected as samples, according to the circumstances and simple elimination method. The statistical method in this research was correlation analysis. The results of the study showed that the size of firms, the complication of the auditor's work, and the amount of resources spent on internal audit have a significant relationship with the amount of fees. But relationship of audit risk and fees were not statistically significant.