Apply IIA Authoritative code of conduct to resolve an ethical dilemma involving the auditor's responsibility to the public.
In this scenario, the audit engagement allows for 1,000 hours of audit work on an attestation engagement. You are the auditor assigned to the case. Your audit manager explains to you that you cannot exceed 1,000 hours of billable hours to the client. You are wondering what might happen if you found evidence of a fraud, whether that would affect the audit.
You express your concern about the audit with your manager. Your manager tells you not to worry about it, because you may not find any evidence of fraud, anyhow. She reemphasized the need to stay with the allotted hours for the engagement.
The auditor has to exercise professional judgment in planning and conducting fieldwork while faced with staying within the allotted hours to complete the audit engagement; yet you feel that you need to spend more time looking for evidence of fraud. You feel as though your manager is more concerned about finishing the audit engagement on time than in spending any extra time trying to detect fraud. The ethical dilemma is that you feel your manager is not allowing you enough time to conduct testing in an effort to find fraud.
Explain how you would approach your manager to raise your concern in spending what you feel is an appropriate amount of hours trying to find evidence of fraud.