The influence of competence and independence towards audit quality: empirical study at public accountant firm in South Jakarta.

Audit quality can be affected by several factors, both internal factors and external factors. The factors which have very important role in determining the quality of audit are competence and independence. This study aims to analyze and prove the empirical evidence of the influence of auditors? competence including experience and knowledge and auditors? independence including long association with client, the pressure from client, peer review and non-audit services provided by Certified Public Accountant Firm towards audit quality. The samples are 52 respondents taken from auditors of Certified Accountant Firm in South Jakarta. As for answering the research hypothesis, the author used multiple regression analysis after testing its classical assumptions Based on the T-test that has been calculated by the researcher, it shows that the value of auditor competence = 7.921 > 2.405 while the value of auditor independence = 6.006 > 2.405. It means that both the competence and independence of auditors partially affect towards audit quality. Moreover, the Ftest result shows that F count > F table (169.589 > 3,190). It means that both the competence and independence of auditors simultaneously affect towards audit quality. Therefore, both the auditor and Certified Public Accounting Firm are expected to improve their competence and independence. The more competence and independence do the auditors have, the more quality of audit will be resulted