Preserving Auditor’s Independence, Competence, and Coping Time Budget Pressure: Keys to CPA firm’s Survival in the Era of Disruption (A Study on Local CPA Firm)

Abstract

Certified Public Accountant (CPA) firms are disrupted and striving to survive through rendering assurance services to audit clients. This study aims to describe the auditor’s independence, auditor’s competence, and time budget pressure, and auditor’s performance in CPA firms. It examines the effect of auditor’s independence, auditor’s competence, and time budget pressure on auditor’s performance in this era of disruption. Explanatory research was used in this study using questionnaires in gathering data. Respondents were from two local CPA firms based in Jakarta. There were only 34 auditors who were available to participate. A multivariate analysis was used in the processing and analysis of the result of the study. The results of the study proved that auditor’s independence has a significant and positive effect on auditor’s performance, while auditor’s competence and time budget pressure have no significant effect on auditor’s performance if partially tested. But if simultaneously tested auditor’s independence, auditor’s competence and time budget pressure have a significant effect on auditor’s performance. The result implies that local CPA firms still manage to survive in the era of disruption by preserving auditor’s qualities and coping with time budget pressure.

Keywords: Certified Public Accountant (CPA), respondents, competence, budget pressure