Audit Committee

Audit committees oversee the integrity of a company’s financial statements and hire, compensate, and oversee the external auditor. Taking the assessment questionnaire included in this tool can be used by audit committees to inform their evaluation of the external auditor, and lead to enhanced oversight by the audit committee.

Emerging Technologies: An Oversight Tool for Audit Committees provides a framework and questions that audit committees may ask management and auditors to help inform their oversight of financial reporting as emerging technologies take hold.

This tool is designed to help audit committees exercise their oversight responsibilities as companies implement a new credit losses accounting standard that begins to take effect in January 2020. The tool includes an overview of the new standard and offers key questions and resources for audit committee members to consider.

This tool is designed to help audit committees exercise their oversight responsibilities as companies implement a new leases accounting standard that begins to take effect in January 2019. The tool includes an overview of the new standard and offers important questions for audit committee members to consider for successful implementation.

In June 2017, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board adopted a new auditing standard that will bring about significant changes to the auditor’s report. We explain these changes to the auditor’s report, including disclosure of auditor tenure, Critical Audit Matters (CAMs), and other new requirements.

This tool helps audit committees assess a company’s implementation of the new revenue recognition standard, which took effect for many public companies on January 1, 2018.

Concerns and questions from regulators and investors have grown around the management’s presentation, outside the audited financial statements, of performance metrics that do not conform to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). This tool helps audit committees probe whether such measures are accurate, appropriate, and useful to investors.

This tool provides key questions board members can use as they discuss cybersecurity risks and disclosures with management and CPA firms, and also compiles cybersecurity-related resources from the CAQ, the American Institute of CPAs, the National Association of Corporate Directors, and others.