This study determined the extent of implementation of auditing guidelines for payroll and expense arrangements in tertiary educational institutions’ financial reporting in South-East, Nigeria. One research question guided the study and two null hypotheses were tested. Related literature pertinent to the study were reviewed which exposed the need for the study. Descriptive survey research design was adopted, using a population of 1,405 accounting officers. Taro Yamane formula was utilized to select a sample size of 311 account officers for the study. A structured questionnaire developed by the researchers was used for data collection. The instrument was validated by three experts. Cronbach Alpha was used to establish the reliability of the instrument. The reliability index obtained was r = 0.84. Data collected were analyzed using mean, standard deviation, t-test and ANOVA. Mean was used to answer the research questions and standard deviation was used to explain how the responses of the respondents varied. ANOVA and t-test were used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The results showed that auditing guidelines for payroll and expense arrangements were moderately implemented by account officers for the purpose of financial reporting in tertiary educational institutions. The results also showed that there was no significant difference in the mean ratings of accounting officers based on type of and ownership of institutions on the extent audit guidelines for payroll and expense arrangements are implemented. Based on the findings, the researchers recommended among others, that the management of tertiary educational institutions in South-East should keep updating the payroll with new information technology to ensure that there is accuracy and speed in transmitting information concerning payroll between departments and the payroll section/unit.