The whole mankind of this planet is now living in a completely unknown socioeconomic environment amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Almost all organisations of all sizes and sectors, including professional accountants and auditors, are now facing unexpected and extreme challenges across the world. The industry and service sectors of the economy have been affected very badly due to coronavirus. Businesses and people are now passing hard times. Accountants and auditors also cannot carry out their professional works properly as they have to maintain social-distancing. The contagion has brought significant uncertainties, market volatility and business disruptions across the world. The present situation has created an adverse liquidity in the businesses. Due to this, another situation may arise to sell a part of business or assets or discontinue the business itself. So, accountants should now assess the abilities of the businesses to continue as concerns are growing to protect shareholders’ interest. During any economic recession, generally assets are impaired and there may be unexpected decline of the market value of assets like property, plant and equipment. This situation demands testing the impairment of assets. The Covid-19 will lead to technological improvements of industries and businesses and as such, many machinery and equipment will become obsolete and lose economic performance than expected. As a result, carrying value of those assets may not be recovered and it may be difficult for professional accountants and auditors to apply the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) 5. Moreover, many businesses are witnessing unexpected stock lots of inventories due to the cancellation of orders. The International Accounting Standard (IAS) 2 requires that inventories should be measured at lower of cost and net realisable value (NRV), which may also be difficult at the moment. Under the circumstances, professional accountants and auditors should apply fair judgments in addition to the IFRS with a view to ensuring true and fair financial statements. The Covid-19 has created a situation of providing more services through digital platform. But it is a reality that most of the businesses in Bangladesh are family-owned and they maintain some confidentiality in their financial transactions. The owners are reluctant to give full information to the accountants and auditors through online considering the matters of cyber security and involvement of taxmen. Besides, online remote working may also create increased risk of financial fraud and may impact internal control. The International Auditing and Assurance Standard Board has highlighted in its Covid-19 staff alert regarding the possibility of fraud and error and awareness of the auditors to pay more attention to standards. The Covid-19 is a major issue as well as an opportunity for accountants and auditors to further develop under digital platforms. They should now develop foolproof online professional service platforms and be very careful to detect frauds and rosy pictures of financial statements. Amid the presence of the deadly virus, they should maintain ethics in giving professional judgments and take extra precautions to gain confidence of stakeholders and protect public interest so that the WorldCom, Enron, Lehman Brothers and Satyam types of situations are not repeated.
