Definition 1.
A company's financial statements which have been prepared and certified by a Certified Public Accountant (the auditor). In the U.S., the auditor certifies that the financial statements meet the requirements of the U.S. GAAP. An auditor can have an unqualified opinion, in which he or she agrees with how the company prepared the statements, or a qualified opinion, in which he or she states which aspects of the company's statements he or she does not agree with. In extreme cases, the auditor may express no opinion on financial statements at all, in the case that the scope of the audit was insufficient.
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