Eormal mandate of the ACUs
We examined firm manuals to discover the formal mandates of the ACUs on the
subject of consultation. These formal mandates indicated no differences across
firms with respect to the overall role of an ACU. Four of these firm manuals
require consultation on certain sensitive accounting questions, and all manuals
endorsed the principle of consultation as being an important activity. Table 1
lists the issues on which consultation is required. The table is derived from the
audit manual sections describing the ACU function. Table 1 also breaks down
the issues that require consultation by firm. Other accounting issues may be
suggested for consultation in the technical accounting manuals maintained by
each firm but they are not grouped together for reference. Therefore, if we had
approached this study from reading the "official" mandates of the ACUs as
expressed in firm manuals, we would have concluded there was little difference
among the firms' ACUs, beyond some differences in issues that required
mandatory consultation. As will be shown later in the paper, this conclusion
would have been erroneous.
TABLE