What's wrong with this picture? When bean counting giant Grant Thornton asked chief financial officers and senior comptrollers whether they thought auditors were responsible for detecting any and all fraud, a whopping 82 per cent answered in the affirmative. At the same time, 62 per cent of the respondents said they thought it was possible for them to intentionally misstate their financial statement to their auditor.

The Grant Thornton survey makes sobering reading.

Especially the revelation that nearly half of these financial experts had never heard of XBRL, or eXtensible Business Reporting Language which is being hailed as the future of financial reporting. SEC chairman Christopher Cox is the chief cheer leader for XBRL.