The Public Company Accounting Standards Board is preparing to unveil a proposal to give auditors new guidance on how they are expected to communicate with audit committees and to consider possible new standards governing what goes into an audit report and how to define the principal auditor’s role.

The board has set a meeting for Monday, March 29, to propose the new standard on communications with audit committees, along with some related amendments to the board’s interim auditing standards. Then on April 7 and April 8, the board’s Standing Advisory Group will meet to discuss, among other things, whether some changes might be in order for the current model for audit reports.

The PCAOB has been mulling a possible standard on how auditors should communicate with the audit committee at least since 2005, when its Standing Advisory Group tossed around some ideas. The board noted its current standards pre-date the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and so some changes might be in order. As an example, the board was troubled by the fact that auditors are required to assess the possibility of material misstatement due to fraud, but they’re under no particular obligation to tell the audit committee what they find.

The board asked SAG members for their views on other auditor-audit committee communications, including how often they should meet, whether management should be included, and whether audit committees could do a better job if they got more information from auditors on related parties, fraud risk, a going concern analysis and others.

As for possible future audit standards, the board is asking its Standing Advisory Group to offer ideas on a recommendation from the U.S. Treasury’s Advisory Committee on the Auditing Profession to take a fresh look at the auditor’s standard reporting model. The board will hear panel remarks on the history of how the audit report came to be as it is today and discuss ways to clarify the auditor’s role in detecting fraud.

The board also is asking the SAG to sound off on other topics, including whether it should strength requirements on the principal auditor's use of the work and reports of other auditors.