Provide a Measurement Model for Error Management and its Effect on Fraudulent Financial Reporting with Emphasis on the Role of the Audit Quality

Objective: Error management is a process that by identifying errors in a timely manner, in preventing the occurrence of errors and dealing with errors as a key to understanding the production of quality in many areas, including accounting and auditing has found a prominent role. The concept of error management is a general term that reflects the joint efforts and activities of managers and employees of organizations for three general principles of error management, namely: 1- Identification and detection of errors, 2- Prevention of errors and 3- Fixing and resolving errors. In the present study, in order to achieve the first principle of error management, ie identification and detection of errors, go to the strategic document of COSO (2013) and by examining and focusing on the document and in accordance with the proposed research model, which is surveyed by accounting elites, it is clear. That error management in business units originates from the internal controls of those units and can be identified and measured in the presence of these controls. According to the principles of the Kosovo Document, the objectives of the internal controls contained in the document are three categories, which are: Has endangered the business unit is considered as an error and is classified as: 1- operational error 2- compliance error and 3- reporting (accountability) error. In order to identify and detect the mentioned errors, the report of the independent auditor has been used and by means of content analysis, the errors have been studied and extracted manually from the mentioned report. Also, because error management in companies is not measurable, the hypotheses have been tested by the inverse criterion, ie the number of errors. Therefore, companies that have managed these errors correctly will have fewer errors in their portfolio. After identifying, measuring and collecting errors, their impact on fraudulent financial reporting has been investigated and the quality of auditing, which is an important and fundamental tool in error disclosure and has played a significant role in this regard, has been included in the models as a moderating variable.
On the other hand, financial reporting is an important tool for fulfilling the responsibility of responding to the needs of respondents in society and the usefulness of financial statements and other financial reports is affected by the quality of financial reporting. The quality of financial reporting has important economic consequences such as increasing liquidity, reducing the cost of capital, increasing the growth of the company and adequate accountability for respondents. Quality financial reporting occurs when the activities and operations underlying financial reporting are managed in terms of possible errors and are free of errors and mistakes. Therefore, to achieve this, error management must be done.  Error management is also critical to the quality of business outcome in the business environment, especially in financial environments, because, first, errors are in direct conflict with the quality of financial reporting and lead financial users to erroneous conclusions. Second, errors cause learning within the organization because they provide clear indications that something is wrong and needs to be changed, and third, research has shown that errors are common in environments with high workload, high time pressure, and rapid changes between Things happen, the need to learn new things, sophisticated technology, diverse customers and high demand for order. All of these characteristics are very common in business environments, which means that error management, in other words, prevention and resolution of recurring errors, plays an important role in the daily work of managers, which ultimately manifests itself in accounting and especially in financial reporting. It becomes. Therefore, due to the important position of error management in various fields, including the accounting profession, it is expected that by identifying, modeling and testing it, we can see better quality information in the form of financial reporting.
Method: The present study is a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. First, the research model was developed through interviews with 15 experts in the field. The financial statements, which are the most objective criteria for measuring the inaccuracy of the financial statements and the obvious manifestation of fraud and distortion in the financial statements, have been evaluated. The years 2013-2020 have been studied. In order to achieve the research results, hypotheses have been designed that logistic regression has been used to test them.
Results: The results show that among the three types of identified errors, which are compliance, operational and accountability errors, operational error management has a negative and significant effect on fraudulent financial reporting and audit quality has strengthened the relationship. Also, the role of observational errors and reporting (accountability) has been carefully accepted. Regarding the quality of auditing, due to the high independence of the "audit organization" and impartiality in detecting, reporting and disclosing errors in detail in the Annual audit report, business units that have manipulated their actual activities have been forced to record adjustments and resubmit financial statements. They themselves have recorded that this alone has shown the high independence of the organization as a formal institution with a high executive guarantee in detecting and exposing errors.
Conclusion: Error management in business units, especially in the operational sector, in addition to increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of business unit operations, also reduces the possibility of fraudulent financial reporting and improves the quality of financial reporting.