Olson Company, a medium-size manufacturer of products marketed in the Midwest, recently was persuaded by its banker to have its annual financial statements audited. The company has been growing at a rate of 20 percent per year, and the current year's sales volume is approaching $55 mil- lion. The company had used an accounting firm to perform some accounting functions but has not done so since it added personnel to the accounting depart- ment and added a new computer system. 

Required

a. Briefly describe the objectives of an independent audit. 

b. Identify the ways in which the external audit may have specific benefit to Olson Company. 

c. Identify some of the points that might be discussed by management in deter- mining whether to have the audit performed by a multinational public ac- counting firm, a large regional firm, or a local CPA firm.