Öz
Key audit matters include, in the auditor's professional judgment, matters of most significance in the audit of the current period financial statements. With the published "BDS 701 Communicating Key Audit Matters in the Auditor's Report Standard", it has been made mandatory to include key audit matters in audit reports, in which the auditor's opinion, other than "refraining from giving opinion", since 2017. Key audit matters are communicated to provide greater transparency regarding the audit performed and to increase the communication value of the auditor's report. Communicating key audit matters provides, in the auditor's professional judgment, additional information to the intended users of the financial statements (“target users”) in understanding the most important issues in the audit of the financial statements for the current period. The purpose of this study is to determine the key audit issues that the auditors pay attention most during the independent audit. For this purpose, 101 audit reports prepared between 2017 and 2020 for a total of 27 companies in the Food, Beverage and Tobacco sector, one of the sub-sectors of İstanbul Stock Exchange Manufacturing Sector, were examined and an evaluation was made on what the auditors consider as key audit matters. According to the research findings, 202 key audit matters (KAM) were identified in the relevant sector, and the most reported key audit matters were Revenue (38 of 202 KAMs) with 18.81%, Tangible Fixed Assets (33 of 202 KAMs) with 16.34%, Inventories / Provision for Inventories (32 of 202 KAMs) with 15.84%, Trade Receivables (31 of 202 KAMs) with 15.34%, Investment Properties (16 of 202 KAMs) with 7.92% and Goodwill and Intangible Fixed Assets with Unlimited Life with 5.94% (12 of 202 KAMs) were found to be in the subjects.