Audit
Also called: external audit, internal audit, auditor
An audit is an independent examination of financial statements to give an opinion on whether they fairly present the position of a business. It's assurance, not a guarantee: auditors sample, they rely on management representations, and they are not designed to detect sophisticated collusive fraud. The expectation gap between what the public thinks an audit does and what it does is the source of most of the profession's reputational crises.