The impact of the external auditor and the external accountant on the quality of the financial statements of small- and medium-sized Belgian enterprises

The primary objective of this paper is to investigate the impact of the external auditor and the external accountant on the level of discretionary accruals of small- and medium-sized Belgian enterprises that are not legally obliged to appoint an external auditor and an external accountant. There exist evidence on the positive impact of auditors on the quality of financial statements of the SMEs. However, to our knowledge, few investigate the impact of the external accountant on the quality of the financial statements. This matter is a key component to evaluate the complementarity of the work o... Mehr ...