Comparing Active Auditors viewpoints in Public and Private Sector over Determining Basic Materiality Levels in Auditing

Abstract

Materiality is a threshold quality in accounting which has priority over other qualitative characteristics of financial information. In other word, financial information are important in decision-making only when they are important with respect to this to definition, omission or altering these significant information can change the judgments and decisions of  logical user over the affairs of a business entity. The purpose of this research was to identify the auditors` ideas in private and public sector over basic materiality levels and compare the perspective of these two groups over these levels. The statistical population of this research is managers in auditing firm, partners in auditing institutions. According to Kukran formula, the sample volumes of this research are 84 people. The results indicate that, there is a meaningful difference between high and low important levels from the viewpoint of active auditors in private and public sectors. This means that there is no consensus between these two groups in determining high materiality level. In other words, in determining the low important level, the average viewpoint of auditors in auditing organization in relation to private sector is minimum. We concluded that public sector's auditors are more conservative than the ones in private sector.