ABSTRACT
In speaking of an audit, it is of the first importance to distinguish whether or not a thorough and efficient one is meant, and also to consider how far the matters to be audited admit of exhaustive treatment, without such heavy expense as would be considered intolerable by any body of shareholders. Many accountants appear to consider that in demonstrating that they really understand book-keeping by double entry, and that they can, if left to follow their own course and take their own time, fully explore all the intricacies of a business concern,—they have shown their fitness for the highest tasks. And many shareholders, on the other hand, practically adopt the idea that they have secured all the advantages of a true audit when they have voted a sum for that purpose, which so far from sufficiently remunerating a careful and plodding inquirer, would hardly pay a man of genius for accountancy for the trouble of superficially glancing at their accounts.
