Assessment of the State Audit Court of Mato Grosso's capacity to conduct financial audits

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to evaluate the capacity of the State Audit Court of Mato Grosso to conduct financial audits in the bodies and entities of the state and municipal public administration. Regarding the methodological procedures, the research is classified as exploratory and descriptive, with a qualitative approach, using a bibliographic and documentary survey to review the concepts and purposes of accounting and accounting auditing, as well as applying a questionnaire as a data collecting tool. The results of the respondents' profiles indicate that all public servants who answered the questions hold higher education degrees in the broad field of ​​applied social sciences, especially in Business Administration, Accounting, and Law; and 70% of them have postgraduate degrees in this field of ​​knowledge. Regarding employees’ perception of the implementation of financial auditing, the results, particularly from questions 6, 8, 12 and 14, reveal that financial auditing is not formally regulated (31.8%) or adequately established by normative acts (40.9%); there is no financial auditing manual (50.2%), or the existing audit manual does not address the matter adequately and sufficiently (31.8%); and there is no provision for financial audit in the biannual inspection plan (50.0%). Finally, based on these results, the implementation stage of the financial audit at the State Audit Court of Mato Grosso is intermediate, but there are challenges to be overcome for it to be fully implemented.