The Relationship between the Comparability of Financial Statements and Audit Fees: The Modified Role of the Auditor’s and his Client’s Characteristics: Evidence from Companies Listed on the Egyptian Stock Exchange

The research aimed to test the impact of the characteristics of the audit client and auditor firm as modified variables on the relationship between the comparability of financial statements and audit fees. To achieve the goal of the research, previous studies were analyzed to derive research hypotheses, and then an applied study was conducted on a sample of non-financial companies listed on the Egyptian Stock Exchange during the period between 2017 - 2019. The results of the study showed that the comparability of the financial statements negatively and significant affects the fees for auditing the annual financial statements of companies listed on the Egyptian Stock Exchange. There is also a significant effect of the characteristics of the audit client’s (the audit client size, client complexity) on the influence relationship between the comparability of the financial statements and the annual financial statement audit fees for companies listed on the Egyptian Stock Exchange, while the risk of the audit client’s business had an insignificant effect on the relevant relationship. studying.
The results also indicated that there was a significant effect of the characteristics of the auditor firm, especially (the auditor’s industrial specialization) on the influence relationship between the comparability of the financial statements and the audit fees for the annual financial statements of companies listed on the Egyptian Stock Exchange, while the size of the audit firm had an insignificant effect on the relationship under study.
The additional analysis concluded that it is preferable to introduce two variables that the auditor's opinion and auditor tenure as new control variables on the research model. The effect of the auditor's opinion was better compared to its auditor tenure in influencing the audit fees. Finally, the results of the sensitivity analysis using the total accruals as a measure of the comparability of the financial statements supported the results of the basic analysis to test the first and third hypotheses only.