All PCAOB articles – Page 22
-
Blog
Deloitte Survey Shows Audit Stakeholders Want More From Audit
Image: A Deloitte survey shows that a big majority want to see auditors providing assurance on more than just financial statements, and they want to see auditors making better use of technology. “Many investors are looking for broader and deeper insights that can help them make smarter, more informed decisions,” ...
-
Article
PCAOB, SEC Redouble Efforts on Audit Quality
Image: The SEC and PCAOB are pushing this summer to clarify and improve “audit quality.” That might be a proposal to name the engagement partner working on corporate audits (PCAOB idea), or an exploration of new disclosure requirements for audit committees (SEC idea), or both. “I would urge commenters to ...
-
Blog
SEC Poses Long List of Possible Audit Committee Disclosures
Only a day after audit regulators have proposed a new method for extracting from audit firms the names of engagement partners on each public company audit, the SEC blew open the discussion with a long list of its own questions about whether audit committees should provide that and many more ...
-
Blog
SEC Slaps Deloitte for Auditor Independence Violations
The SEC has charged Deloitte & Touche with violating auditor independence rules after it failed to notice a consulting affiliate had a business relationship with an audit client. Deloitte says it discovered the violation and reported it after the firm put in place enhanced independence measures. Deloitte will settle charges ...
-
Blog
EY Shows Improvement in Latest Inspection Report
EY earned a 36-percent deficiency rating in its latest audit inspection report, with the majority of the busted audits showing problems in both the financial statement audit and the audit of internal control over financial reporting—an improvement over its 2013 record failure of 49 percent, but not enough to beat ...
-
Blog
PCAOB Revisits Naming Engagement Partner, Audit Quality Metrics
Audit regulators are trying again to propose a rule that would give investors more information about who is working behind the curtain when an audit firm files its final report on a company’s financial statements.
-
Article
Smaller Companies Struggle Forward on SOX Compliance, System Investments
More grist for smaller reporting companies unhappy with your compliance burdens: A new report finds that although all businesses continue to invest in SOX compliance, smaller companies still report less benefit from the effort. Inside, we look at which parts of compliance are most troublesome for small filers (“If they ...
-
Blog
Big 4 Make Big Gains in Consulting Services, Report Says
Image: According to a new report from Source Information Services, Big 4 accounting firms outperformed the U.S. market in 2014, growing 12.8 percent to $17.5 billion in revenue compared with 2.4 percent growth for the economy overall. The U.S. market for consulting grew 9 percent in 2014 to more than ...
-
Blog
SEC Might Explore Auditor Tenure for Audit Committee Disclosure
Image: When the SEC issues its audit committee discussion paper, it likely will explore more on the audit firm’s tenure and naming engagement partners. As the PCAOB has tried to get consensus on these themes, the board has heard pushback that the disclosure is better placed in audit committee reports, ...
-
Blog
Audit Committees Get Fresh Tips on Evaluating Auditors
Image: The Audit Committee Collaboration, backed by seven groups with various missions around corporate governance and investor advocacy, has updated its External Auditor Assessment Tool, tips to help audit committees conduct their evaluation of external auditors. Cindy Fornelli, executive director of the Center for Audit Quality, says the tool “can ...
-
Blog
Deloitte Inspection Report Shows Reduced Audit Deficiencies
PCAOB audit inspectors found fault with 21 percent of the audits inspected at Deloitte in 2014, lower than any rate delivered for any major firm since 2009 and lower than Deloitte’s failure rate from one year ago. The report also revealed a new format for PCAOB inspection reports. More inside.
-
Article
More Hints at More Audit Committee Disclosure
Image: The SEC plans a concept release “soon” that could modernize audit committee disclosures for the first time in years, including touchy subjects like naming the audit engagement partner. Expect awkward questions to follow about how audit firms are hired and perform the work they do. “This foreshadows what I ...
-
Blog
PCAOB Considers Standard on Using Specialists’ Work
Image: The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has issued a staff consultation paper looking for input on whether and how to revise standards around the auditor’s use of the work of specialists. PCAOB Chairman James Doty said, “We want our standards to keep pace with the realities in the marketplace, ...
-
Article
Audit Relations Continue to Be Strained
Image: Tensions over the audit of internal controls over financial reporting were in focus at the Compliance Week 2015 conference last week, with many saying corporate audit committees will ultimately need to resolve the problem. “We hear the concerns, even frustrations, from company officials over the level of audit work ...
-
Article
PCAOB to Audit Committees: Help Us Help You
Image: The PCAOB’s latest guidance to audit committees will help them understand how to push their audit firms to dig deeper into risk. It may also, however, nudge audit committees to undertake risk and audit oversight the PCAOB itself cannot do. “In places like China, the PCAOB cannot inspect, but ...
-
Blog
PCAOB Gives Audit Committees Oversight Cheat Sheet
As inspectors begin looking at 2014 public company audit files, they will be tuning in to emerging market risks around mergers and acquisitions, falling oil prices, undistributed foreign earnings, and the quality of audit work as firms grow other business lines. The PCAOB published a new paper reaching out to ...
-
Blog
SEC Ponders Tension Over Management Review Controls
Image: Amid continued tension over what it takes to satisfy auditors and regulators with respect to management review controls, the SEC is pondering whether some kind of new guidance might be in order. Deputy Chief Accountant Brian Croteau said recently, “It’s not an area that seems to be improving. So ...
-
Article
Audit Inspections: Improvement? Maybe. Costs? Yes.
Image: Five years of increasingly rigorous PCAOB inspections have driven audit firms to improve their efforts at scrutinizing corporate financial statements and internal control. Companies receiving that pressure say the heightened scrutiny is clear; the question is whether it is making audits better, or just bigger and more expensive. “Companies ...
-
Blog
Study Shows No Better Reporting After Auditors Cut Tax Services
U.S. auditor independence rules targeted at tax work have done nothing to improve financial reporting quality, according to new academic research out of Singapore. The study found a big shift in non-audit services provided by audit firms, leading to a significant drop in auditor-provided tax services, especially among firms that ...
-
Article
PCAOB Inspection Data: Shifting Standards, Shifting Insights
Image: If you want to be panicky or cynical about audit firms’ performance, citing failure rates in PCAOB inspection reports is a great way to do it. The truth is more complex. In Part II of our series looking at PCAOB inspection data, we delve into how inspections have changed ...