Ethics Accounting

The aim of this report is to build up the understanding of the APES 110 ethical code of conduct for the professional accountants. This report focuses on the different language used in the APES 110. At the same time, it explores the importance of the APES 110 for the professional accountants. This report also analyzes the impact of the language used in the APES 110 on the compliance of accountants to the code of ethical conduct. Finally, this report will analyze the impact of APES 110 laws and regulation on the professional accountants. 

Accounting Professional and Ethical Standard Board APES 110:

APES 110 (Accounting Professional and Ethical Standard Board) it is an Australian code of ethics for professional accountants and it is essential to meet out the rules and regulation by all the members of the Institute of Charted Accountants in Australia (ICAA). APES 110 comprise of the different professions such as credit providers, governments, employers, investors, business and financial community. Along with this, APES 110 identifies the public interest for wellbeing of the society (Australian Medical Association, 2006). The responsibility of APES is to serve the public interest through facilitating fair accounting standards and guidelines. Therefore, APES 110 is code of ethics for professional accountants, which is issued by the Accounting Professional and Ethical Standard Board (APESB). In addition to this, APES 110 follows the format of the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC). APES 110 focuses on three things, which are as below:

• General application of the code
• Members in public practice
• Members in business

In addition, APES 110 provides the five principles for the accountants to meet out the threats in accounting treatments. There are five principles contained in code of ethics, detail of which is as follows:

• Section 110: Integrity: It depicts that every member should straight forward in a professional relationship.
• Section 120: Objectivity: A professional override the conflict of interest or reduces the bias.
• Section 130: Professional competence and due care: It controls the skill and knowledge of the professional to provide the effective services to the client based on current practices (Asgary and Mitschow, 2002).
• Section 140: Confidentiality: Professionals should not disclose the client information to the third party without prior consent.
• Section 150: Professional behavior: To follow the rules and regulation that enables to reduce the threats

Language Uses in APES 110

There are two types of language that are used in the APES 110 such as:

• Conditional language
• Unconditional language

It can be said that all the members of the Institute of Charted Accountants Australia (ICAA) should adhere to the language of the code. The language of the code differs from the strength of meaning. In this code, different keywords are used over the whole document such as May, shall, should, must, might have and prohibited (APESB, 2006). May and should words are used many time in the APES 110. But prohibition is used under the section 290.14 and 290.15. Moreover, conditional language provides the conceptual framework of different elementary principles of professional code of ethics (Farrell & Farrell, 1998). Along with this, may word in APES 110 presents the evidence of the ethical issues?  For this, May is used 260 times in the whole document.

Example of May is:

According to Code 140.7, all the members of the Institute of Charted Accountants in Australia may require disclosing their private information related to laws and regulation. It may be appropriate information related to the work ethics. In the APES 110, ‘should’ word use for obligated to perform the duty and it is used 182 times in the whole document (Frankel, 1989).

Example of Should is:

According to the 150.2 Code, the members should not include their profession while promoting their works.

In the whole document, conventional language is used over the non-conditional language. It is because; conditional language is effective to identify the accounting standard of code of ethics, which is helpful to enhance the significance of the APES 110. Concurrently, APES 110 language will be helpful for the accountants, because it ensures all members follows the rules and regulation of the APES 110 language. However, APES 110 is significant to use the different languages related to public practices (Brien, 1998). In spite of this, the conditional language is classified in a different way in terms of the code of ethics. Moreover, conditional language comes under the code 4, which shows the different response of the respondents.  Simultaneously, in this code, there is no requirement of false or misleading statements of the respondents.

Issues Identify by the APES 110:

There are some issues are identified in the APES110 which is discussed as below:

In section 290 (APES 110) an independent accountant is performing the assurance engagement. In section 110 (APES 110) integrity issue is identified. So, any of the members should not be connected with any false misstatement, reports.

Importance of the APES 110:

APES 110 are significant for the entire members, who provide the professional service to the clients, because this code provides the guidance on ethical accounting practices. It also provides the practical assistance to accountants in business world. Along with this, APES 110 increases the value of the accountants, because professionals easily decrease the threats while providing the professional services by following APES 110 guidelines (Asgary and Mitschow, 2002).

APES 110 Impacts on the Professional Accountants:

According to APES 110, all the professional accountants should be straight forward and honest in their professional business relationship.

While providing the services, the Professional accountants should comply with the rules and regulation of the APES 110. All professional accountants should comply with APES 110 across the country while providing the audit service. But at the same time, accountants also need to keep the local laws and regulation in the mind (APESB, 2010). Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (AUASB) has imposed some laws and auditing standard in the context of the APES 110, so as to audit and review audit work of the professional accountants. An APES 110 also prohibits the contingent fees of the professional accountants. In addition, excessive use of the conditional language would impact on the behavior of the professional accountants, because the extreme use of laws and regulation of the APES 110 reduces the value of the Institute of Charted Accountants in Australia (International Federation of Accountants, 2013)

Instead of this, every member, who performs in audit companies, and registered schemes should follow the APES 110, because of laws and regulation of the Ethics Standard Board for Accountants (IESBA). Apart from this, APES 110 impacts on the accountant’s work, because laws and regulation of APES Australia increases the roles and responsibility of the professional’s accountants (Han, et al., 2014). Meanwhile, some laws and restriction of APES are imposed on the relationship between professional accountant and its client that the financial interest is the immaterial end.

Moreover, professional accountants should follow the conceptual framework through the principles of the APES 110. APES 110 increase working standard of professional accountants, which is helpful to meet out public interest requirements (Davenport and Dellaportas, 2009) Along with this, APES 110 increases the roles and responsibility of the accountants, because of laws and regulation and the code, accountants need to professional act in the public interest. As a result, it fulfills the needs of the clients. Furthermore, this code is also helpful for the accountants, because APES 110 provides a conceptual framework to the professionals to deal with threats while providing the professional services like self-interest, self-review, advocacy, familiarity threats, and intimidation (Walpole and Salter, 2014).

Rules and regulation of the APES 110 should be followed by all members of Australia while providing the professional service to the client, because it reduces any misstatement or in the document. Instead of this, if accountant fails to follow the laws and regulation of the APES 110, consequently disciplinary procedures and sanctions would be levied on it. APES 110 help the professional accountants to provide public practices from accounting, bookkeeping services and preparing tax for the public interest entities (Wotruba, et al., 2001).  

Conclusion

From the above analysis, it can be summarized that every member, who provides professional services, should follow the principles of the APES 110. In this report, excess use of conventional language over the nonconventional language is discussed. Laws and regulation of the APES 110 are significant for the professionals to overcome the threat and risks related to misstatements and interpretation while providing the professional service to the clients. Simultaneously, excessive use of APES 110 decreases the value of the accountants that impacts the value of final deliverables. At the same time, APES 110 increases the working standard of the professional, which is quite helpful to meet out the public interest requirements (APESB, 2010).

References

Australian Medical Association, (2006) AMA Code of Ethics, AMA Limited, Sydney.

Asgary, N and Mitschow, M. (2002). Toward a model for international business ethics, Journal of Business Ethics, 36, 239-246.

APESB (2006). APES 110 Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants, Australian Professional & Ethical Standards Board., Melbourne.

Farrell, H., & Farrell, B. (1998). The language of business codes of ethics: implications of knowledge & power, Journal of Business Ethics, 17, 587-601

Frankel, M. (1989). Professional codes: Why, how, and with what impact? Journal of Business Ethics, 8, 109-115.

Brien, A. (1998). Professional ethics and the culture of trust, Journal of Business Ethics, 17, 391-410.

APESB (2010). APES110 Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants, Australian Professional & Ethical Standards Board, Melbourne

Davenport, L. & Dellaportas, S. (2009) Interpreting the Public Interest: A survey of professional accountants, Australian Accounting Review, 19, 1, 11-23.

International Federation of Accountants (2013). Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants, London.

Wotruba, T., Chonko, L., & Loe, T. (2001) TThe impact of ethics code familiarity on manager behaviour, Journal of Business Ethics, 33, 59-69. 

Walpole, M. and Salter, D. (2014). Regulation of tax agents in Australia. eJournal of Tax Research, 12(2), 335-359.

Han, Y., Woodbine, G. and Scully, G. (2014). Guanxi, a two-edged sword! How Australian accounting professionals view the process within a moral framework. Managerial Auditing Journal, 29(8), 695-716.