The Auditor's Companion: Concepts and Terms, from A to Z

The only comprehensive and up-to-date dictionary covering the concepts and language of auditing

The Auditor's Companion combines succinct definitions of core auditing terminology with more than one hundred expansive discussions of concepts important to auditing, such as the audit society, authority, judgment, logic in auditing, the postulates of auditing, and skepticism. This collection of mini-essays includes theoretical explanations and insights, sketches of arguments, historical developments, and guidance for further reading.

Transcending the framework of a dictionary, The Auditor's Companion is a reference book in which succinct definitions and conceptual explorations combine into a coherent whole to satisfy the needs of both novice and experienced auditors. The terminology of auditing covers both the evolving, socially constructed aspects of auditing's purposes, as well as auditing's methodological basis in the abstract, enduring techniques of traditional logic. The book's coverage of terminology therefore embraces auditing's constantly developing socioeconomic roles in addition to its perennial methodologies of reasoning.

The Auditor's Companion is the only reference tool that addresses the underlying characteristics shared by all categories of auditing.

David J. O'Regan is Auditor General of the Pan American Health Organization in Washington, DC, and a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. His previous posts include auditing in the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague, Netherlands, and, prior to entering the United Nations system, he was Head of Audit at Oxford University Press. He has written six books on auditing, including Bribery: Identify Hidden Risks in Your Organization. He earned his doctorate in accounting and finance from the University of Liverpool.