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Auditing has long existed and it was in 1899 that the first Swedish organization for accountants SRS, Swedish Audit Society, was created and in 1923 that FAR, Association of Chartered Accountants, was formed. It was after the Kreuger crash in the 1930s that authorized auditors had their breakthrough. After the crash the accounting profession has endured fierce criticism when the audit was flawed and it was during this period that authorized auditors became more widespread, the concept was developed independently and the importance of auditor independence became evident.

We have in our paper therefore chosen to focus on auditor independence and to make that it requires the independence to relate to something. Therefore we have chosen to focus on the interaction between the auditor and the client. To explain what independence means we have used the analysis model, the expectation gap and communication, and explain what the audit entails and what tasks the auditor has. To do this, we used the qualitative method and interviewed two auditors, an auditor at KPMG and one at ÖPWC. In order to get another perspective we also interviewed two clients, Eskilstuna-Kuriren AB and Eskilstuna Energi och Miljö AB.

Auditing means that with a professional critical attitude plan, review, evaluate and comment on management, annual report and accounts. Auditor's role is simply to assure the quality of information. This requires that the auditor is independent and follows confidentiality, and assumes professional ethics and generally accepted auditing. In order to reduce the expectation gap it is important that the information and communication between auditor and the client works well.

In this paper we found that the analysis model is an important tool for examining auditor independence for each new assignment and each new year. We also found that our respondents believe that an open dialogue is important and that the auditor will act as a sounding board. Our clients do not feel that there is a gap in expectations because they have a record in the auditing profession and know what an auditor should and must do.