The Impact of Financial Reports Readability and Firm Life Cycle Stages on Audit Fees: An Applied Study on Non-financial Companies Listed in the Egyptian Stock Exchange

The research aims to study and exmain the impact of the Financial Reports Readability, as well as the firm life cycle stages on the audit fees. Using an applied study on a sample of non-financial companies listed in the Egyptian Stock Exchange, which amounted to (78) companies in different sectors, with a total of (229) observations, during the period from 2017-2019. The results of the study showed a significant negative relationship between the readability of financial reports and audit fees. There is also a practical evidence in the Egyptian environment that there is a different impact of the firm life cycle stages on the audit fees, and it became clear that the company entering the growth phase has a greater significant positive impact on audit fees, compared to the shack out phase, while the rest of the phases had no significant impact on audit fees. This indicates an increase in the ability of growth stage to explain changes in audit fees compared to other stages. This means that the audit fees vary across the firm life cycle stages.        
To ensure the accuracy and integrity of the study results, some additional analyzes were performed using several alternative measures of readability and company life cycle stages, as well as excluding some control variables that do not affect audit fees. The results supported the results of the basic analysis, The results were that the number of pages of the financial statements and their footnotes represent the main pillar and cornerstone for the auditor to estimate the risks, efforts and audit fees in the Egyptian practice environment, and that the number of pages of the Board of Directors report, and the number of footnotes do not represent a good indicator for readability. There is also a significant negative effect of readability on audit fees even after excluding some control variables that do not have a significant effect on audit fees. Also, all the alternative measures for the firm life cycle stages agreed that the growth stage has a significant impact on audit fees compared to other stages, which means that there is a difference in audit fees across the firm life cycle stages, and this indicates the accuracy and integrity of the results reached in the stage of basic analysis. These results are important for the Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority, the Egyptian Stock Exchange, and auditors.