Introduction: The general meaning of audit expenses refers to the related expenses incurred by the firm in undertaking the audit project, that is, the audit project cost. Audit project cost control is the key point of audit cost control of firm, and it is of great significance to study its composition.

Keywords: audit cost, influencing factors, audit cost control

1. The meaning and composition of audit cost

1. 1 the meaning of audit fees

The general meaning of audit cost refers to the related expenses incurred by the firm in undertaking the audit project, that is, the audit project cost. The cost of audit project is the monetization of all the manpower, funds and material resources that the firm has increased by accepting audit business, which is also the audit cost in the general sense. Audit project cost control is the key point of audit cost control of firm, and it is of great significance to study its composition. Scientific papers.

1.2 composition of audit fees

Audit project cost consists of direct cost and indirect cost. Direct expenses are expenses that directly constitute the cost of the audit project, including business undertaking expenses (that is, pre-trial investigation expenses), audit plan expenses, on-site audit expenses of on-site audit and office audit expenses of off-site audit. Among them, it should be emphasized that the on-site audit cost of on-site audit is mainly composed of audit time cost, audit evidence collection cost and expert employment cost. Indirect cost mainly refers to the cost of serving the audit business, such as coordination cost with the audited entity, transportation cost between cities and within cities, etc.

2. Analysis of the influencing factors of audit cost

This paper holds that the factors that affect the audit cost mainly include the following aspects:

2. 1 audit risk

Audit risk is the core factor affecting audit cost. Its impact on audit cost is reflected in two aspects: first, in the process of executing audit business, under a certain expected audit risk, the evaluation of inherent risk and control risk will directly affect the acceptable inspection risk. Second, higher audit risk will increase the possibility of issuing inappropriate audit reports, so the possibility of suffering losses will also increase. Scientific papers. At this time, although audit risk does not increase the number of audit risk losses, it increases the probability of risk loss costs.

2.2 Audit techniques and methods

Advanced and efficient audit techniques and methods can obviously reduce audit costs and improve audit efficiency. At present, the impact of audit technology and methods on audit cost is reflected in "hardware" and "software". "Hardware" mainly refers to the application of computer technology and modern communication technology in the audit field. The development of general audit software greatly improves the efficiency of audit, enabling certified public accountants to complete more work in a shorter time, thus greatly reducing the cost of audit projects. "Software" mainly refers to the application of audit methods to allocate audit resources more effectively in the field of risk audit, such as the application of risk-based audit methods, which greatly improves audit efficiency and provides a broad space for reducing audit costs.

2.3 Management level of certified public accounting firms

Firms with high management level generally have strict quality control system and complete time and capital budget, which can improve audit efficiency and reduce audit cost on the premise of ensuring audit quality. At the same time, the stricter quality control system reduces the possibility of issuing inappropriate audit reports and the probability of risk loss costs.

2.4 the scale of the audit project

The scale of an audit project is generally related to the size of the audited entity. The larger the size of the audited entity, the larger the scale of assets or statement items, the more things happen, and the larger the account balance. Compared with small-scale units, the more audit resources an accounting firm invests, the higher the audit cost. It can be seen that there is a positive correlation between audit project scale and audit cost.

3. Audit cost control

3. 1 Dialectically introduce risk-oriented audit

Risk-oriented audit provides a brand-new concept, which can not only maintain the audit effect, but also improve the audit efficiency. Introducing risk-oriented audit is a change of practical concept. When choosing audit strategy, we should pay attention to choosing a balance between audit effect and audit efficiency. Its fundamental goal is to reduce the audit risk to a level acceptable to auditors and society. Specifically:

1. Define customer service and other planning objectives. The specific contents include: defining the planning objectives such as customer service, acquiring or updating the understanding of customer business and industry, evaluating the overall control environment, preliminarily judging the importance, determining the important accounts that need to be reviewed, confirming the data sources that affect these accounts, and preparing an audit plan.

2. Understand and evaluate important data sources in order to find and determine control weaknesses. Generally, it is carried out in the middle, including: confirming important estimation and data processes, understanding each process, considering possible mistakes, and confirming control related to evaluation.

3. Conduct a preliminary risk assessment, with the purpose of selecting a reliable and effective audit procedure through risk assessment, that is, consider the inherent risk first, and then conduct a preliminary assessment of the control risk. The specific contents include: confirming important operations and transactions; Understand the process of important transactions and draw the flow chart; To study where the judgment error may occur, one is to identify the key links in the process, the other is to control the relationship between the target and the important links in the process, and the third is to confirm the possible errors in the transaction process.

3.2 Save time and resources and reduce audit costs.

Time resources = ∑ time+∑ labor (knowledge), time resources can generate value and increase economic benefits. If time and resources are also wasted, the labor cost will increase. First of all, we must strictly manage time resources. The management of time resources is to study how to allocate high-value and low-value time resources according to the differences of each kind of resources, and realize a good combination of allocated time resources and human resources, so as to maximize the value of the generated resources. Secondly, optimize the audit procedures and reduce intermediate links. The more complicated the audit procedure, the higher the audit cost. Therefore, under the premise of ensuring the best resource allocation, the appropriate audit procedures must be carefully selected. Scientific papers. It mainly includes: designing and proposing specific expenditures in the total expenditure.