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Research Article

A Study on the Effect of Continuous Audit Systems on Financial Statement Usefulness

Son, Seonggyu · Kim, Taedong

Published: January 2006 · Vol. 35, No. 4 · pp. 989-1013
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Abstract

This study analyzes from two perspectives whether the implementation of the quarterly review system affects not only the quarterly reports in question but also semi-annual and annual reports. The first perspective examines whether the quarterly review system contributes to constraining managers' earnings management behavior, and the second verifies whether the quarterly review system contributes to enhancing the association between accounting information and stock prices at each settlement date—quarterly, semi-annual, and year-end. The degree of managers' earnings management was analyzed using the absolute value of current discretionary accruals, and the association between accounting information and stock prices was analyzed using an accounting information–stock price relevance model modified from Ohlson (1995). The empirical results revealed evidence that the absolute value of current discretionary accruals for the sample that underwent quarterly reviews was significantly smaller than that of the sample that did not undergo quarterly reviews. Furthermore, the results confirmed that the association between accounting information and stock prices was generally higher for the sample that underwent quarterly reviews than for the sample that did not. This study demonstrates that the quarterly review system, introduced in connection with the continuous audit system, can enhance the usefulness of accounting information. Therefore, the government's policy to expand the current quarterly review system—which is applied to corporations listed on the securities market and KOSDAQ-listed corporations with total assets of 1 trillion won or more in the immediately preceding fiscal year (2 trillion won or more prior to 2004), as well as financial institutions—is evaluated as desirable in that it is expected to contribute to further enhancing the reliability of semi-annual financial statements and annual reports by establishing a continuous audit system.
Keywords: 분기검토분기보고서유동재량발생액이익조정주가관련성