Ethical Standards in Accounting

Essay by jefnerUniversity, Master's January 2007

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The Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) has created a formal standard document to clearly outline what it has determined to be ethical conduct to be followed by its members. They created this document to ensure that all those who are affiliated with its certification know what ethical conduct is expected and that those who rely on it certifying procedure are aware of those expectations and are able to rely upon them. This also gives additional credibility to the work prepared and signed off on by the accountants affiliated with their institute.

There are four main tenets of the standard that the IMA has created. These tenets are:

*Objectivity

*Integrity

*Confidentiality

*Competence

Within these main categories there are very definitive expectations.

Objectivity deals mainly with how the accountant communicates both with the company being audited as well as the public at large. This standard is to ensure that all relevant information either to the investor or public agencies is conveyed in an accurate and timely manner and that all information that pertains to the line items being reported on public documents has that information noted if necessary.

A violation of this standard would be if the accountant in charge of auditing had knowledge that shell companies were being created and funds funneled to those companies and that there really was not a business function being performed and did not report that data on the audit report.

Integrity speaks to conflict of interest either real or potential and the communication of that conflict to the involved parties. This also includes the necessity of communicating to all employees and coworkers the necessity not only of avoiding conflicts but also avoid the appearance of conflicts. This also involves making sure that all information about or in reference to the company is conveyed whether or...