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Audit Committee Material Weaknesses in Smaller Reporting Companies

December 2nd, 2010

OUTLINE:

I. SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE

II. PROBLEM STATEMENT

III. SUGGESTIONS FROM THE AUTHORS

IV. RELEVANCE TO AUDITING ENVIRONMENT

V. CONCLUSION

I. Summary of the Article

This report summarizes the article published by Gramling, Audrey A, Hermanson, Dana R, Hermanson, Heather M in the CPA journal of 2009. The main focus of the article is to show the importance of audit committee in auditing and analyze problems of small companies face in developing effective audit committee. The critical issue of the article is material weaknesses related to audit committee and possibility of management’s override of internal control within small companies. Before, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, audit committees in public companies were under more pressure to understand not just a company's financial statements, but to challenge management and auditors on key accounting, internal control and compliance issues. After the financial scandals that caused firms like Enron and WorldCom to collapse, audit committees have risen from relative darkness to center stage in modern corporate world. As it’s indicated in the article, the new role, the typical audit committee is charged with many duties. Because new role of audit committee increased complexity and accountability, it's easy for directors of small public companies to feel besieged when considering changes or improvements. When management of the company feels overwhelmed with new changes it can lead to override of internal control. Therefore, the authors offer some suggestions to solve the problem and create an effective audit committee and internal control within small companies.

Audit committee is very important aspect of internal control over financial reporting. In

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