Savitskyi V. Economic analysis of audit firms’ activities

The research conducted enabled to substantiate the current state of audit entities’ development and to specify the peculiarities of the audit firms’ economic activity. It is established that the number of audit entities is dramatically decreasing and the tendency to consolidate audit firms is being observed at this stage of development of audit business. This trend is justified by us from the standpoint of increasing the requirements for audit firms and the need to attract more economic resources. A model of economic activity of an audit company as an object of economic analysis has been developed. The model noted provides the identification of key objects of economic activity from the perspective of economic analysis. The audit firm’s economic activity is represented by the following stages: 1) forming economic resources including key financial, labor and property resources (tangible and intangible assets); 2) determining the role of above mentioned economic resources in the formation of the audit firm’s economic potential; 3) generating new types of capital, such as reputation and customer capital, directly interdependent on the effectiveness of auditing (a model of the position of reputation and customer capital in managing the audit firm has been developed); 4) specifying components of the effectiveness of the audit firm as an economic entity as well as a subject of independent financial control. All the items mentioned above enables to form new theoretical knowledge in the fields of two economic functional sciences: economic analysis and audit. The analysis of the current stage in the development of auditing in the world indicates to the lack of uniform global approaches to audit regulation. Each country develops its own approaches to the guidance of audit regulation and sets specific requirements for audit firms' activity. It should be noted that the main characteristics of modern auditing is the establishment of requirements for the audit firm’s human resources