Trust
Providing Accounting and Taxation services is a position of Trust. Clients accepts a professionals judgements on Account and Taxation matters. Trust is developed by not being self serving and manipulative. Conscious steps are needed to to be taken in order to develop trust. Communication need to be explicit and honest.
Trust depends on a professionals character and competence
- Character is based on intentions, visible by standards and values where the welfare of the general public is upheld.
- Competence is based on ability, knowledge and skill. The ability to integrate and apply this knowledge and skill to a variety of complex situations is required for competence to develop.
Ethics
Ethics helps personals to conduct business with honesty and integrity. It helps businesses to behave consistency when ethics can be communicated by norms, standards and requirements. In Accountancy Profession, ethical concerns are more related with confidentiality and correctness of documentation. Protecting clients and upholding the reputation of the profession is required.
Ethical dilemmas can arise when we don't expect them. The expectations of others to the response to these dilemmas can differ. Decisions to Ethical dilemmas should place professional objectivity as pf paramount value. Professional impairment should not happen and crossing to the wrong side could only happen knowingly.
Accountability
Accountability means holding someone responsible for the quantity, timing and quality.
Accountability can be regarding
- Maintaining standards.
- Assessing risk of standards not being met.
- Maintains continuous quality improvement over the standards.
Accountability could be attributed to
- individual - from an individual perspective.
- organisation - organisation wide perspective.
- industry wide - of the accounting profession itself.
- Pressure, which could be situation or personal. This could be alternatively called the incentive.
- Opportunity, which is access to systems or money.
- Rationalisation, which is the justification of the thought process regarding the ethical breach.