Audit regulators are asking their advisers to offer ideas on how to address some increasingly stressful flash points in modern auditing—like auditing fair-value measurements and accounting estimates, and relying on the work of specialists to reach audit conclusions. They’re also considering some new standards around auditor communications and audit committees and how auditors should look at related-party transactions.

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board will assemble its Standing Advisory Group in Washington on Oct. 14 and 15 to give them an update on standard-setting activities and hear their views on future standard-setting priorities. Topics like fair-value measurement and accounting estimates are becoming increasingly touchy among preparers, auditors, and regulators because of the significant judgment that’s required to reach financial statement assertions and audit conclusions.

The PCAOB also plans to bounce some ideas off the advisory group for a new standard to govern how auditors should communicate with audit committees, in part to establish some new guidance regarding communication about management judgments and estimates. According to a briefing paper provided to SAG members, the PCAOB is looking for ideas on how to get past boilerplate dialogue to achieve more effective, robust communications between auditors and audit committees.

The PCAOB asks SAG members to consider whether the minimum communication requirements should be enhanced to include more information on management’s judgments and estimates and whether auditors should be required to discuss their assessment of the quality of disclosures.

In addition, the PCAOB is considering developing a new standard on related parties and plans to ask the SAG for some ideas. The board said it is considering a new standard because financial relationships with related parties have proved important in recent corporate scandals, and the board’s inspection and enforcement actions suggest some auditors aren’t skeptical enough when evaluating such relationships and transactions.

The board is looking for some input on whether it should define certain related-party circumstances as automatic indicators of possible fraud, raising the bar on the amount of scrutiny that should be exercised by auditors. Those circumstances might include, for example, a significant related-party transaction that is outside the ordinary course of business or transacted with an entity that is not audited, or the establishment of a variable interest entity where the rights and obligations are not in sync with the company’s authority.