Auditor

Public companies have to present financial results to their shareholders. These numbers get reviewed by a theoretically neutral third party. The process of reviewing the finances is known as an audit and the person doing the audit is known as (no prize for getting this one)...the auditor.

Typically an auditor isn't a single person (that would be one overworked schlub). Instead, it's usually an accounting firm hired by the company.

As we noted before, these auditing firms are supposed to be neutral observers. Kind of like a referee in a sport. But the auditors get hired by the company being audited, receive a check from the company being audited and want to stay employed by the company being audited. Conflict of interest issues sometimes come to the surface.

For the most part, though, auditors provide shareholders with improved security. An auditor's stamp of approval lets investors know that the company's publicly released results accurately describes what's going on at the company.