Audit and Auditor

AUDIT AND AUDITOR. An audit is examination of the accounts kept by the financial officers of a state, public corpo rations and bodies, or private persons, and the certifying of their accuracy. In the British Isles the public accounts were audited from very early times, though until the reign of Queen Elizabeth in no very systematic way. Prior to 1559 this duty was carried out, sometimes by auditors specially appointed, at other times by the auditors of the land revenue, or by the auditor of the exchequer, an office established as early as 1314. But in 1559 an endeavour was made to systematize the auditing of the public accounts, by the appointment of two auditors of the imprests. These officers were paid by fee and did their work by deputy, but as the results were thoroughly unsatisfactory the offices were abolished in 1785. An audit board, consisting of five commis sioners, was appointed in their place, but in order to concentrate under one authority the auditing of the accounts of the various departments, some of which had been audited separately, as the naval accounts, the Exchequer and Audit Act of 1866 was passed. This statute, which sets forth at length the duties of the audit office, empowered the sovereign to appoint a "comptroller and auditor-general," with the requisite staff to examine and verify the accounts prepared by the different departments of the public service. In examining accounts of the appropriation of the several supply grants, the comptroller and auditor-general "ascertains first whether the payments which the account department has charged to the grant are supported by vouchers or proofs of payments; and second, whether the money expended has been applied to the purpose or purposes 'for which such grant was intended to pro vide." The treasury may also submit certain other accounts to the audit of the comptroller-general. All public moneys payable to the exchequer (q.v.) are paid to the "account of His Majesty's exchequer" at the Bank of England, and daily returns of such payments are forwarded to the comptroller. Quarterly accounts of the income and charge of the consolidated fund are prepared and transmitted to him, and in case of any deficiency in the con solidated fund, he may certify to the bank to make advances.

In the United States the auditing of the federal accounts is in the charge of the office of the Comptroller General, who is the head of the General Accounting Office, an agency independent of the executive departments of the government and responsible directly to Congress. In the performance of this function, the Comptroller General operates through a technical unit or bureau called the Audit Division under which are the following subdivisions: (I) Contract Examining Unit; (2) Receiving and Computing Section; (3) Check Section; (4) Contract Voucher Section; (5) Miscel laneous Section; (6) Civil Pay and Travel Section; (7) Military Pay Section; (8) Receipts and Deposits Section; (9) Audit Review Section; (1 o) Accounting Section; (I I) Indian Tribal Claims Section and (12) Veterans' Bureau Section. This covers all government activities except those of the Post Office which are audited by the Post Office Division, a co-ordinate bureau with the Audit Division under the Comptroller General.

Provision is made in all the state and local governments for the exercise of the audit function in some form.

In practically all European countries there is a department of the administration, charged with the auditing of the public ac counts, as the tour des comptes in France, the Rechnungshof des deutschen Reiches in Germany, etc. All local boards, large cities, corporations and other bodies have official auditors for the purpose of examining and checking their accounts and looking after their expenditure. So far as regards the work which auditors discharge in connection with the accounts of joint-stock companies, build ing societies, friendly societies, industrial and provident societies, savings banks, etc., the word auditor is now almost synonymous with "skilled accountant," and his duties are discussed in the article ACCOUNTANTS.

In Scotland there is an "auditor" who is an official of the court of session, appointed to tax costs in litigation, and who corresponds to the English taxing-master. In France there are legal officers, called auditors, attached to the Conseil d'Etat, whose duties con sist in drawing up briefs and preparing documents. On the con tinent of Europe, lawyers skilled in military law are called "audi tors" (see MILITARY LAW).

Auditores Rotae.

Auditor is also the designation of certain officials of the Roman curia. The auditores Rotae are the judges of the court of the Rota (so called, according to Hinschius, prob ably from the form of the panelling in the room where they orig inally met). These were originally ecclesiastics appointed to hear particular questions in dispute and report to the pope, who re tained the decision in his own hands. In the Speculum juris of Durandus (published in 1272 and re-edited in 1287 and 1291) the auditores palatii domini papae are cited as permanent officials appointed to instruct the pope on questions as they arose. The court of the Rota appears for the first time under this name in the bull Romani Pontificis of Martin V. in 1422, and the auditores by this time had developed into a permanent tribunal to which the definite decision of certain disputes, hitherto relegated to a com mission of cardinals or to the pope himself, was assigned. From this time the powers of the auditores increased until the reform of the curia by Sixtus V., when the creation of the congregations of cardinals for specific purposes tended gradually to withdraw from the Rota its most important functions. It still, however, ranks as the supreme court of justice in the papal curia, and, as members of it, the auditores enjoy special privileges. They are prelates, and, besides the rights enjoyed by these, have others con ceded by successive popes, e.g., that of holding benefices in plural ity, of non-residence, etc. When the pope says mass pontifically the subdeacon is always an auditor. The auditores must be in priest's or deacon's orders, and have always been selected—nom inally at least—after severe tests as to their moral and intellec tual qualifications. They are 12 in number, and, by the constitu tion of Pius IV., four of them were to be foreigners : one French, one Spanish, one German and one Venetian; while the nomination of others was the privilege of certain cities. No bishop, unless in partibus (see BISHOP), may be an auditor. On the other hand, from the auditores, as the intellectual elite of the curia, the episco pate, the nunciature and the cardinalate are largely recruited. The auditor camerae (uditore generale della reverenda camera apostolica) is an official formerly charged with important execu tive functions. In 1485, by a bull of Innocent VIII., he was given extensive jurisdiction over all civil and criminal causes arising in the curia, or appealed to it from the papal territories. In addi tion he received the function of watching over the execution of all sentences passed by the curia. This was extended later, by Pius IV., to a similar executive function in respect of all papal bulls and briefs, wherever no special executor was named. This right was confirmed by Gregory XVI. in 1834, and the auditor may still in principle issue letters monitory. In practice, however, this function was at all times but rarely exercised, and, since 1847, has fallen to a prelate locum tenens, who also took over the auditor's jurisdiction in the papal states (Hinschius, Kathol. Kirchenreclit, i. 409, etc.).

Auditores (listeners), in the early Church, was another name for catechumens (q.v.).