Abstract In this article the author stimulates interest in a co-operative effort through the facilities of the American Institute of Accountants, of the American Accounting Association, to improve the manner of audit reporting. According to the author these organizations have had a profound influence in developing accounting and auditing standards and techniques. The author considers the questions such as how best to indicate clearly the auditor's responsibility, what information should be included in the report, and how should the information be presented? He states that the auditor should prepare his report so that no one need be deceived in any case. In any discussion of the accountant's responsibility it should not be assumed that the client has no responsibility for the representations in his own financial statements which have been audited by a certified public accountant. In order to clarify his responsibility the accountant may give a disclaimer of an opinion. This means that the scope of his work was not sufficient for him to express an over-all opinion on the financial statements taken as a whole, or that some other circumstance prevented the expression of such an opinion.

Abstract The question of the accountant's responsibility was discussed in an article titled "What is the Accountant's Proper Responsibility?," which was published in the November 1946 issue of "Journal of Accountancy." In that article attention was directed to the fact that up to the present an accountant may dodge the responsibility of stating that his examination lacked some of the standard auditing procedures carefully developed over the past fifty years. He may state that he did this and that in the way of verification and omitted something else, but, how is the layman to know whether what he did constitutes an audit on which reliance may be placed. The expression of an opinion by an accountant in connection with financial statements means that it is a financial picture upon which management and third parties may rely. Punishment may be inflicted if he gives this opinion without an adequate examination. But the accountant who makes a superficial examination and who wishes to dodge responsibility for it may hide in a fog of words.