Dataset for understanding the effort and performance of external auditors during the COVID-19 crisis: A remote audit analysis

Abstract

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic at the end of 2019 has dramatically changed the life of both individuals and corporate businesses. Besides the health fears of the pandemic, there are sizable challenges for some jobs that habitually deliver their services face-to-face, disrupting the quality of service. In particular, external auditors, the most critical and reliable accreditors of financial reports, are in an unprecedented situation to conduct audit works and collect sufficient and appropriate audit evidence. To capture how COVID-19 affects auditors in Saudi Arabia, an online questionnaire was developed and distributed from April to August 2021 via email to all 417 auditors/audit firms registered with the Saudi Organization for Chartered and Professional Accountants (SOCPA). This dataset contains responses from 193 auditors, in four major sections: demographic information (7 items); audit effort during COVID-19 (3 items); auditor performance during COVID-19 (7 items); and remote audit proficiency (6 items). It may serve for theoretical and practical assessment for auditors in the time of COVID-19, for example, evaluating how auditors conduct their work during the lockdown and how remote audit proficiency impacts the effort and performance of auditors. In addition, it can be used to assess the differences between auditors by considering the moderating effect of their personal characteristics on the impact of remote audit proficiency on both effort and performance.

Keywords

• COVID-19 pandemic
• Remote audit
• Audit effort
• Auditor performance
• Saudi Arabia
• Audit firms