- Audit Fees, Audit Tenure, Audit Quality, Financial Reporting.
Abstract
This paper assessed the impact of Audit fees and Audit tenure on the Financial Reporting of quoted natural resource firms in Nigeria. Five (5) cited natural resource firms in Nigeria were selected to achieve this objective. The study used secondary data which is from the annual reports of the established sampled natural resource firms for ten (10) financial years (2010-2019).Financial reporting is used as the study's dependent variable and was regressed using audit fees alongside Audit tenure. In contrast, the firm size is an independent variable using the standard least regression method (OLS) to test the hypothesis. The
study's outcomes indicated that audit fee has a positive and significant relationship with financial reporting quality, while audit tenure also has a positive but insignificant relationship with financial reporting quality, Firm size, is only significantly associated with financial reporting quality. The study found that the higher audit fees have the likelihood of compromising auditors' independence, thereby leading to lower financial reporting quality. The study recommend that regulators of the audit practice to establish measures that can be used to regulates and monitor the pricing process of the audit so that to ensure a balance that
would eliminate over-charging and or under-charging of the audit fees which evidence reveals could impair the independence of the auditor, thereby impact financial reporting quality of an entity.