You are the senior in charge of the audit of NOB Company. The CFO is pressuring you to complete the audit in two weeks. Some of the audit team members are new staff and have required a significant amount of training to bring them up to speed for the audit. As a result, your audit is behind schedule. However, you know that even with extended overtime, your audit team cannot complete all of the planned audit work in two weeks.

Required

a. What should you do in this situation?

b. What could have been done to prevent this situation? Scene 2-Partners in the public accounting firm of Noble, Wishman, & Kant, LLP, earn compensation points for

(1) Obtaining new clients,

(2) Retaining clients, and

(3) Selling additional services to existing clients. Depending on the number of points, each partner's compensation can be increased by up to 150% of their base salary.

Required

a. Explain why this arrangement can be a threat to independence.

b. What could be done to eliminate this threat but yet encourage the audit firm to seek out sufficient profitability to attract and retain qualified auditors?