Identification of auditor’s report qualifications: An empirical analysis for Slovenia

Abstract

An auditor’s report qualifies a company’s financial statements if the management’s representation of the company’s financial affairs is not in accordance with nationally generally accepted accounting pronouncements. The present research studies the qualification of auditors’ reports in relation to the circumstances in the company’s economic situation that lead to the qualification. Qualifications have been analysed on a sample of 293 large Slovenian companies. The results reveal that companies with qualified auditors’ reports have high indebtedness, low liquidity, low efficiency and poor profitability in comparison with companies with unqualified auditors’ reports. From a statistical viewpoint, a logistic model can distinguish between companies that received a qualified auditor’s report and companies that received an unqualified auditor’s report on a sample of Slovenian large companies.