Code of ethics for professional accountants
MakeMyAssignments.com focuses on the ethics are important for any profession. One of the important key to professionalism is to adhere oneself with professional ethics. These ethics help a professional to cooperate with the compliance of the work. A professional who keep himself or herself away from standard ethics has to suffer lot in his or her respective profession and the professional’s trustworthiness becomes a question for people in the same field. Either it’s a teacher, doctor, nurse, accountant or any other profession, ethics are must. These ethics help a professional to carry the burden of work while maintaining a line of professionalism.
MakeMyAssignments.com will let you know that in the field of accounting, many certified organizations publish their own code of ethics or guidelines for accountants. These organizations are:
· Association of certified public accountant: It is now named as Certified Public Accountants Association. This association was formed in 1989 for the interest of accountants in United Kingdom. The organization provides a designation of certified public accountant. The members of association who wish to have the use of certified public accountant designation must retain a current practicing certificate and the other requirement is that the member must have provided services as practicing public accountant to the general public or business community. There are many organizations that offer designation of a certified public accountant and some of these have been set up in United States, Australia, and China etc. In the United States, American Institute of Certified Public Accountant (AICPA) take the charge of offering CPA designations.
· Chartered Institute of Management Accountants: It is a UK based professional body that is a largest management accounting body in the world. This professional organization provides training and offers qualification in the field of management accounting. CIMA promotes education, management development, training and new techniques in the practices of management techniques through activities of media and publications. All of it’s branches possess a committee that works at grass-roots level.
· INSTITUTE OF INTERNAL AUDITORS: It was established in 1941 that aims to provide dynamic leadership for the profession of internal auditing. To achieve this, the organizational body focuses on certain activities such as providing professional education, professional practice guidance, educating practitioners and the related designations for best practices in internal auditing. IIA offers a professional designation named as certified internal auditor (CIA) which is recognized globally for internal auditors.
What are the code of ethics for professional accountants?
The International Ethics Standard Boards for Accountants is an independent body that works for the development of professional ethics and guidance for the professional accountants. The main objective of the International Ethics Standard Boards for Accountants is to set code’s ethical standards for professional accountants and also regulate auditor’s independence standards. Many different states have also introduced their own code of ethics for making CPA candidates and practitioners to understand the principles for recognition and requirements of state licensing.
Accountants owe a major part of responsibility against the public interest and their own accounting profession. With the cultivation of their profession, they need to maintain the trust of the public. An accountant has to go through various responsibilities where he or she may have to deal with the personal information of the third part, which should not be disowned at any cost. The basic purpose of professional code of ethics is to ensure safety of personal details of individuals and organizations and to maintain the trust of public over the accounting professionals.
There has been many examples where public had to suffer due to non-professional and non-trustworthy accountants. Sadly, not everyone in the field of accounting is trustworthy. And on the other hand, it is also important for the public to attain quality services of accounting. Therefore, some ethics have been introduced or set-up by IESBA (or The International Ethics Standard Boards for Accountants) for the professional accountants so that the public trust over such professionals can be maintained.
MakeMyAssignments.com will help you to be familiar with the following five ethics that should be practiced or considered by any professional in the field of accounting:
1. Work for the interest of public: An accountant’s major responsibility is to work for the need of public, for the interest of the public and for the welfare of the public. While cooperating with other members of the industry an accountant is needed to maintain the confidence of the public too.
2. Objectivity and Independence: An accountant should remain independent while providing the services of auditing, attestation and other services related to the field of accounting. And to achieve this, accountant must work for the interest of the people while protecting and maintaining a balance of integrity principles. Similarly, an accountant should also give priority to the objectives to be achieved and while doing so genuine recommendations should be provided to the customer that should not allow any outside influence.
3. Due Care: Accountants are expected to remain committed to their practice of accounting and provide services as per their abilities. This further can be achieved by remain in connection with the education, cultivation of experience, consulting guidance when needed and ensuring adequate planning and supervision.
4. Confidentiality: Confidentiality plays an important role for any kind of profession where public dealing is involved. Public trust those professionals who maintain work without any false or misleading appearance and the most important who doesn’t disclose their personal and financial information. And if a professional is disclosing any information then a legal or professional reason should be provided in order to avoid any mislead.
5. Professional Behavior: It states that accountants should avoid any action that leads to dishonor of the profession. When it is about self promotion or marketing, no action should be followed that may disrepute the profession. Accountants should not compare with any other professional while promoting and marketing themselves. According to IESBA code of ethics, no accountant should not claim for the services they provide, qualification and experience they have gained at exaggerated rate.
