WHAT IS AN AUDIT

      Generally speaking, an Audit is a professional examination of an information in order to express a responsible and independent opinion, by reporting to a (standard, norm), quality criterion.

      The title of Audit has become widely used nowadays. Initially, its significance was that of a Financial Audit for various objectives as follows: financial situations, processes and transactions of societies.

      Currently, the title of Audit has got also the significance of Operational Audit in order to improve the societies performances and Transaction Audit in order to make an appreciation on a transaction or other types of Audit according to the societies necessities, as follows: Fiscal, Quality, Environment Audit, etc.

      In the European legislation in the 8th Norm, in the new project of modernization of this one from 2004, there is a single type of Audit: Statutory Audit (legal audit, control audit), stipulated usually by The Law of Companies and by the constitutive papers of these ones.

      According to the society’s objectives, in Romania there are the following types of AUDIT:
 
• INTERNAL AUDIT
   
• EXTERNAL AUDIT

      INTERNAL AUDIT examines:

- the observance of the regulations established by the society, of the management decisions, and of the tasks distributions (work procedures, scheduled plans, etc), the reasons and possible consequences;

- the whole internal audit system (preventive, of transaction, hierarchical, operative, etc) and the account system, identifying at the same time the imperfections of the management and internal control system and the associated risks, offering solutions for the improvement of these systems;

- the efficient use, the efficiency as well as the protection of financial, material and human resources, informing at the same time about the unauthorized transactions, waste or fraud, offering proposals of warning, elimination of the causes, responsibilities.

      Internal Audit could be externalized with no changes as concerning the content of its activities.

      The organization of THE INTERNAL AUDIT IN ROMANIA is as follows:

- internal public audit – The Law no.677/2002 and OG no. 37/2004;
- internal audit of entities in private domain – OUG NO.75/1999 REPUBLISHED AND THE Law no. 133/2002.

      The External Audit is achieved by a financial auditor (statutory), appointed by The General Meeting of the Shareholders (Associates) (See Law no. 31/1990, republished, art. 160) or by a contractual auditor, that is a third party, under the basis of a contract with the society.

      The Financial Audit includes a basic mission and connected missions.

      The Contractual Audit is achieved by the auditor in the following circumstances:

- The Entity does not have a statutory auditor and wants to consign to a qualified specialist a financial audit mission, similar to the one of the statutory auditor.
- The contractual Auditor has a qualification, specialization better adapted to a certain action (estimation, internal, fiscal control, etc).