Editing Accounting (section)

=== Firms ===
{{main article|Accounting networks and associations}}

Depending on its size, a company may be legally required to have their [[financial statement]]s [[auditing|audited]] by a qualified auditor, and audits are usually carried out by [[Accounting networks and associations|accounting firms]].<ref name = "Parliament Auditors 1">{{cite web |url=https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201011/ldselect/ldeconaf/119/11904.htm |title=Auditors: Market concentration and their role, CHAPTER 1: Introduction |year=2011 |website=UK Parliament |publisher=House of Lords |access-date=1 January 2014 |archive-date=29 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220729092827/https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201011/ldselect/ldeconaf/119/11904.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>

Accounting firms grew in the United States and Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, and through several mergers there were large international accounting firms by the mid-twentieth century. Further large mergers in the late twentieth century led to the dominance of the auditing market by the "Big Five" accounting firms: [[Arthur Andersen]], [[Deloitte]], [[Ernst & Young]], [[KPMG]] and [[PricewaterhouseCoopers]].<ref name = "Parliament Auditors 2">{{cite web |url=https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201011/ldselect/ldeconaf/119/11905.htm |title=Auditors: Market concentration and their role, CHAPTER 2: Concentration in the audit market |year=2011 |website=UK Parliament |publisher=House of Lords |access-date=1 January 2014 |archive-date=28 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220328230040/https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201011/ldselect/ldeconaf/119/11905.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> The [[Arthur Andersen#Demise|demise of Arthur Andersen]] following the [[Enron scandal]] reduced the Big Five to the [[Big Four accounting firms|Big Four]].<ref name = "FT Big Four">{{cite web |url=http://lexicon.ft.com/Term?term=big-four |title=Definition of big four |year=2014 |website=Financial Times Lexicon |publisher=The Financial Times Ltd |access-date=1 January 2014 |archive-date=2 January 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140102195935/http://lexicon.ft.com/Term?term=big-four |url-status=dead }}</ref>