Introduction
The financial reports published by the company are a form
of management's responsibility to company owners and
other users of financial statements regarding the
performance that has been carried out in a certain period.
The large number of cases of financial statement
manipulation carried out by large companies such as Enron,
Worldcom, Xerox has caused the public accounting
profession to receive a lot of criticism. The auditor is
considered to have participated in providing wrong
information, so that many parties feel disadvantaged. It is
possible that the cases above also occur in the property, real
estate and building construction sectors listed on the
Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX). One of the phenomena
found in the property, real estate and building construction
sectors was experienced by PT Eureka Prima Jakarta where
the company often experienced losses from 2012 to 2018
even though it had made profits in 2014 and 2016 until the
company did not distribute dividends to shareholders in
2018 because they still suffered losses in the previous year
(Fitria, 2019). However, for the last seven years, PT Eureka
Prima Jakarta has received an unqualified opinion. Based
on the number of cases, giving an audit opinion with a going
concern modification by the auditor is the impact of a
company's doubts about being able to maintain the viability
of its business. Going concern audit opinion is bad news for
users of financial statements. The difficulty of predicting the
going concern of a company is a problem that often arises,
causing many auditors to experience moral and ethical
dilemmas in providing audit opinions with going concern
modifications (Januarti and Fitrianasari, 2008). Problems
arise when there are many opinion errors (audit failures)
made by the auditor regarding the opinion (Mayangsari,
2003).
This study aims to examine the effect of debt default, firm
size, and audit quality on acceptance of going concern audit
opinions. This study has several differences from previous
studies. The difference in this study lies in the variable
company size with the reason that this variable has an
influence on giving a going concern audit opinion as stated
in Butarbutar's research (2017) that company size can
describe a company's ability both the ability to fulfill its
obligations and the company's ability to generate profits with
assets owned so that it can determine the granting of a going
concern audit opinion.
Agency theory (agency theory) is a theory that underlies the
company's business practices used so far which describes
the relationship between two individuals with different
interests, namely the principal (business owner or
shareholder) and the agent (company management).
Jensen and Meckling (1976) state that an agency
relationship is an agreed contractual relationship in which
one or more principals instruct another person to perform a
service on behalf of the principal and authorize the agent to
make the best decision for the principal. In relation to agency
theory and acceptance of going concern audit opinions,
agents are in charge of running the company and producing
financial reports as a form of management accountability.
These financial statements will later show the company's
financial condition and be used by the principal as a basis
for making decisions. Agents as parties who produce
financial reports, it is possible to manipulate data on the
condition of the company. Therefore, to prevent this from
happening, an independent party is needed as a mediator
between the principal and the agent whose function is to
monitor the agent's behavior whether it acts according to the
wishes of the principal (Dewayanto, 2011). Auditors must be
able to act independently so that the results of monitoring
management performance are objective and transparent.
The result of this supervision is in the form of receiving an
opinion on the fairness of the financial statements made by
the agent. Apart from opinions, the auditor must also
disclose the company's ability to continue as a going
concern. The more qualified the auditor, the greater the
possibility for the company to get a going concern opinion
because the auditor will be more careful in examining all the
events in the financial statements.
Based on agency theory, the principal assesses the
performance of the agent through the auditor to determine
the condition of the company. The auditor will conduct an
examination of the company, especially on debt activities.
From the results of research conducted by Praptitorini and
Januarti (2011), Dewi and Latrini (2018), Harris and
Merianto (2015), and Mughni (2018) show that debt default
significantly affects the acceptance of going concern audit
opinions. While researchAzizah and Anisykurlillah (2014),
and Butarbutar (2017) state that debt default has no effect
on acceptance of going concern audit opinion.
When the amount of company debt is very large, then a lot
of the company's cash flow is of course allocated to cover
the debt so that it will disrupt the continuity of the company's
operations. If this debt cannot be repaid, the creditor will give
a default status. Thus, it is in accordance with the agency
theory that the existence of information asymmetry causes
the granting of debt default status to be higher and the
possibility of a company getting a going concern audit
opinion becomes even greater. Based on the above
considerations, the following hypothesis is obtained:
H1: debt default has an effect on going-concern audit
opinion
The size of the company proxied by the total assets owned
shows the company's ability to maintain business continuity.
The higher the total assets owned, the company is
considered to have a large size so that it is able to maintain
its business continuity. Large companies have better ability
to manage the company and produce higher quality financial
reports. The smaller the company scale, the smaller the
company's ability to manage its business. Based on the
results of these studies, the researchers proposed the
following hypothesis:
H2: company size has an effect on going concern audit
opinion
The auditor is responsible for providing high quality
information that will be useful for making decisions for users