Question: reference the PCAOB's 10 Generally Accepted Auditing Standards, and the AICPA's Code of Professional Conduct that relate to this scenario.

Mike Stephan worked hard throughout his junior year to reach out to the recruiters at Willis and Adams to demonstrate a sincere interest in the firm. He was impressed with the firm's culture and pleased when he got an interview. He knew he would be a great fit with the company and was excited when he received an offer shortly before he graduated with his undergraduate degree in accounting. Mike's alma mater is a small school that typically does not get a lot of attention from campus recruiters. Mike was one of only two students that Willis and Adams hired from his college. He believed that his school's accounting program was quite good, but that it didn't receive the attention other nearby schools did because of its size. Mike thought that if he did a good job with the firm, his performance might open doors for other students from his school. Mike was excited about starting his new staff auditor position. Things were going well for Mike at Willis and Adams After several months on the job, he was assigned EarthWear. It was his third engagement. In the middle of the audit, Mike became confused and frustrated. He felt he wasted over an hour reviewing the bank reconciliation for the General Cash Account and could not figure how to link the supporting documents to the reconciliation. Mike finally phoned Roxanne Bailey, from EarthWear's Controller's office, to help him sort out the problem. It took Roxanne only a short while to realize that the accounting staff had inadvertently provided Mike with bank deposit slips for the wrong month, which of course did not match up with the bank statements or the reconciliation. Being a new auditor and unfamiliar with EarthWear's documentation, Mike assumed the supporting documentation provided by the client was correct, and that the difficulty and confusion he was experiencing was due to his lack of knowledge and auditing skills. Mike was embarrassed that he had not looked more carefully at the dates. It seemed to take Roxanne's staff a while to track down the correct deposit slips so that Mike could proceed with the planned audit procedures. In total, Mike estimated that he had "wasted" over two hours. He was worried he would not be able to complete the cash audit area in the eight hours budgeted. As Mike began working on the reconciliation again, Alex Ashwal, Mike's senior on the audit, stopped by his desk and said: "We are really under the gun with the budget on this audit. I know there were originally eight hours allotted to the cash audit, but I think six hours should be enough. Make sure to be efficient. Let me know if you have any questions so you don't spin your wheels and end up going over budget." Mike was too embarrassed to tell Alex about what had happened with the deposit slips. As Alex was talking about reducing the budgeted hours, Mike remembered he had looked at last year's working papers and the procedures were the same as this year. The budgeted time for cash last year was eight hours and the staff person had gone over budget last year. Now Alex wanted Mike to finish this task in six hours and he was already behind by two hours. Alex's words were echoing in Mike's mind as he worked hard to complete the cash area. By 4:00 pm, Mike realized he would not be able to complete the cash procedures within six hours. After contemplating the situation for a couple minutes, he decided that he should talk to Alex. After Mike explained the situation, Alex was silent for a long time and then finally said: "Look, we are just going to have to eat that lost time. I just spoke with Dianne and she is adamant about finishing this audit under budget. Dianne is up for promotion to senior manager and I'm sure she doesn't want an over-budget audit right before the partners meet to decide her promotion. Don't worry about it, Mike. Stuff happens and it was partly the client's fault anyway. Just take as long as you need to finish the planned procedures and then put down six hours on the work schedule." From what Alex said, it seemed that Dianne Morris, the manager on this audit, was the one who was applying the pressure on Alex to keep the audit under budget. But eating time just didn't feel right. Mike hesitated and said, "I don't know Alex. Don't you think we'd better just mark down the actual hours?" Alex sighed deeply and said: "Mike I know you are new, but this stuff happens all the time. Think of it as spending a couple extra hours on personal development. In recent planning meetings, the partners have really been stressing the importance of not letting jobs get out of control. An over-budget audit won't look good for any of us right before performance evaluations. Look Mike, I promise eating time is no big dealpeople do it all the time. You want a good performance evaluation, don't you? Let's just dig in and finish up this audit so we can move on to the next engagement. After you finish with cash, I want you to work on accounts receivable. I'll help get you started and it should go pretty quickly." With a quick, "See ya, man," Alex hung up the phone. His pep talk didn't help Mike feel any better about what he was being asked to do. Nevertheless, he still had to finish cash before he left for the night.