"Radical and important' audit standards welcomed by ACCA
ACCA sees this improvement in auditor's reports as crucial to the future value of audits, enhancing both transparency around the audit and innovation in audit reporting
ACCA sees this improvement in auditor's reports as crucial to the future value of audits, enhancing both transparency around the audit and innovation in audit reporting
ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) has given a thumbs up to a raft of ‘crucial’ new changes set to improve the transparency of audits and encourage greater innovation in audit reporting.
The IAASB’s new revisions to its International Auditing Standards aim to ensure fundamental and relevant audit matters are clearly explained and then communicated to the end user. ACCA sees this improvement in auditor’s reports as crucial to the future value of audits, enhancing both transparency around the audit and innovation in audit reporting.
Over recent years, ACCA’s Global Forum for Audit and Assurance – set up to bring together experienced audit professionals from large, medium and small firms from around the world – has responded to the IAASB’s consultations on this area of work, welcoming the final revisions, especially as ‘the value of audit continues to be challenged’.
Robert Stenhouse, chair of ACCA’s Global Forum for Audit and Assurance, said: “ACCA believes audit has a very important place in society. It provides public value through increasing confidence in financial reporting. For global capital markets this facilitates the efficient allocation and use of capital. The benefits of audit are also strongly felt in the public and not for profit sectors. The new standards are consistent and clear, and above all relevant across a very wide user base.”
“These new standards are more challenging for the auditor, but with this comes a great opportunity. This has been an important and long-running project that does not just codify existing best practice, but makes radical changes to audit reporting. The new standards allow scope for auditor judgment to tailor reports to individual client circumstances so that best practice can emerge. How auditors communicate their work is fundamental to understanding the audit and the value it brings.”
KPMG auditor Jimmy Daboo won the British Accountancy Awards’ Outstanding Industry Contribution Award for his efforts in driving more transparency into audit reports among the UK’s biggest companies. He has also been ranked seventh in the Accountancy Age Financial Power List 2015.