Let’s probe.

As a dentist’s daughter, I admit when I hear the word probe, I automatically think of a dentist probing around his or her patient’s mouth looking for cavities. Sorry to all those who just incurred pain or nightmares by my mention of “dentist.”

However, yesterday in my ethics class, Hoshi Printer, one of the corporate panelists advocated the use of probing and using the sniff test to check to see if anything fraudulent could potentially be occurring in any situation that involves you. Thinking about my immediate career goals, his advice was really important to me because in audit, one of the big issues seems to be whether auditors are utilizing professional skepticism. The PCAOB has recently been calling out auditors for not utilizing enough professional skepticism in their audits.

Hoshi preferred to call professional skepticism “healthy skepticism” because you are trying to obtain clarifications, you want to ask questions without the attitude that this person must have committed fraud. Rather, he advocated “probing.”

Another panelist advocated asking questions using facts from competitor companies, comparable companies, or companies in the same industries. If Companies X and Y use this practices, why does Company B do things this way? This way, you’re asking for clarification and their cooperation to help you resolve this confusion rather than confronting someone and asking them to essentially admit that they committed fraud.

So, let’s do it. This upcoming year and thereafter, let’s probe.