ACCOUNTANT'S OPINION

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= auditor's opinion..заключение внешнего аудитора; заключение независимого аудитора.If a independent certified public accountant is requested to audit a company's books, he will issue a opinion as to the condition of the financial statements. There are several degrees of opinion from clean to adverse. A clean opinion doesn't mean that every number is correct, only that the financials fairly represent the position of the company. An adverse opinion means the financials don't represent the position of the company. A disclaimer means the auditor can't (for any number of reasons) express an opinion on the statements.Словарь экономических терминов.

A statement signed by an independent accountant outlining his or her opinion regarding the quality of information contained in a company's financial reports and records.

An accountant's opinion statement can either be qualified or unqualified. When the opinion is qualified, the accountant is questioning the accounting principles and/or scope of the information provided. An unqualified opinion is given when the accountant sees that the given information in the financial statements is sound. In other words, an unqualified opinion is desirable whereas a qualified opinion is not.

The subject of accountant independence became an important issue in the wake of the demise of such corporate giants as Enron and WorldCom in the early 2000's. Because Enron and WorldCom were large companies, they represented a substantial portion of their accounting firms' revenues. This lead to the speculation that the accountants could not provide truly independent opinions for these giant companies, who provided the accountants with extremely lucrative contracts but also might have terminated these contracts if undesirable accounting opinions were issued.