As smaller public companies and their auditors gear up for their first audit of management’s report on internal controls, learning opportunities abound.

The Center for Audit Quality is hosting a live, interactive Webcast on Sept. 25 to explore how well prepared auditors and management are for the first round of audits under Auditing Standard No. 5, the new standard to replace AS2 in governing how to audit the internal control report. The following day, consulting firm Lord & Benoit will present a one-hour Webinar examining what can be learned from smaller companies’ first round of internal control reports, which were not subject to the auditing requirement.

Smaller public companies have so far escaped the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley required audit, granted numerous delays by the Securities and Exchange Commission as the market sorted out how it should work. Lord & Benoit recently studied smaller companies’ inaugural efforts at assessing and reporting on their internal controls even without the audit and found widespread failure and non-compliance.

The CAQ Webcast will present a three-person panel, including auditors from Grant Thornton and Crowe Horwath and the deputy director of inspections for the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. While it’s primarily targeted to auditors, CAQ said, preparers at public companies will learn a few things by listening in.

Lord & Benoit will focus on the findings of its research to explore how companies used—or didn’t use—the extra time granted by the numerous delays to prepare for the integrated audit. They’ll explore the percentage of adverse reports for smaller companies compared with larger companies, the degree of confusion regarding professional requirements, departures from Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, tone at the top, training, ethics, technology, and a host of other issues.