This study aims to describe the perceptions of accounting students and expectations of employers towards the skills and knowledge needed by accounting graduates in Indonesia. Quantitative method using survey is employed to analyze 103 questionnaires from students and 51 questionnaires from employers. The results showed that students’ perceived honesty, continuous learning, and work ethics are important skills, while employers stress the importance of work ethics, teamwork, and time management. Knowledge needed by accounting graduates in the perception of students includes financial accounting, financial reporting, and financial statement analysis, whereas employers perceived the importance of financial statement analysis, knowledge of Microsoft Office program, and financial accounting. Further analysis showed that there is an expectation gap between the perceptions of students and the expectations of employers towards skills – not knowledge – needed by accounting graduates. Although investigations of students’ perceptions and employers’ expectations have been conducted in previous studies, the information should be updated continuously to reflect the current conditions. This study offers the recent perceptions from students and employers to identify the current expectation gap. This study points to the importance of skills development in the university curriculum in order to develop the skillful human resources in accounting and meet the expectations of employers.

The paper examines the characteristics and causes of the expectation gap of audit and assurance services. The paper has conducted three surveys with three target groups. In the first survey, participants are auditors, users of audit reports are subject in the second survey and in the third survey, and students major in auditing are selected. The content of the survey aims to find out the differences in perception of the survey participants on two issues: (i) responsibilities of auditors for detection frauds, errors, protection of the enterprise’s assets and financial scandals, and (ii) the role of audit and auditors in making investment decisions and investor’s belief. The research carried out survey from March to September 2019 with 165 responds. The collected data was processed by statistical software SPSS, version 23, and Mann-Whitney U test was used to analyze the results of the audit expectation gap between the auditor group and the users of audit report group and between the student group and users of audit report group. The results showed that there exists an expectation gap in the responsibility of auditors for detection of all frauds, errors and protection enterprise’s assets. Recommendations include strengthening audit standards, penalizing bad practices and ensuring auditor’s independence.