AUDITOR (Lat., hearer, front audire, to hear). At common law, an officer appointed by the court in the action of account or account render to take and state the items of debit and credit between the parties to the action, de termine the balance due, and report to the court.
Similar officers were appointed in chancery, who were more usually known as masters in chancery. (See :MASTER IN CHANCERY.) As the common-law action of account fell into dis use, courts of common law ceased to appoint auditors; but under modern statutes, the law' courts have power to appoint officers exercising quasi-judicial functions in the taking of ac counts, taking of evidence, trial of issues, etc., variously known as auditors, commissioners, or referees. (See COMMISSIONER ; and REFERENCE.) Their reports, when filed and confirmed, form the basis of the judgment rendered by the court.
The powers and duties of such officers are, in general, limited and defined by the statutes authorizing their appointment.
The term auditor, as MOW employed, however, more commonly has reference to two classes of persons, usually expert neenuntants, who have increased in numbers to in•,4 the of the growing importance and eomplexity of indus trial and financial affairs, and who perform the service of examining and stating the accounts of Government departments, corporations, and private concerns. Shiny of our large cities, as
well as the State and general governments, have official auditors (called, in New York City, commissioners of accounts) as a part of the regular administrative machinery; and the same is true of many of the larger industrial corpora tions. Private auditors are ordinarily subject to no legal regulation, except such as is, imposed the contract under which they are employed, and the general obligation to exercise a reason able degree of skill, care, and caution. A higher degree of skill is required of a professional auditor than of one who does not hold himself out as an expert; such skill, in fact, as is exacted of all strictly professional men. In some of the States of the United States a class of public accountants. licensed and registered by the State, is recognized by statute. For the law as to auditors under the English Companies' Acts and other acts, consult Pixley, Auditors: Their Duties and Responsibilities, 7th ed. (London, 1896).