2018 Audit Committee Transparency Barometer

The amount of information available to investors and other stakeholders on audit committee oversight of the external auditor continues to increase, according to the 2018 edition of the Audit Committee Transparency Barometer, an annual report issued jointly by the CAQ and Audit Analytics. Notable findings in this year’s report include the following:

• 40 percent of S&P 500 companies disclose considerations in appointing the audit firm (up from 13 percent in 2014), compared to 27 percent of mid-cap companies (up from 10 percent in 2014) and 19 percent of small-cap companies (up from 8 percent in 2014).
• 46 percent of S&P 500 companies disclose criteria considered when evaluating the audit firm (up from 8 percent in 2014), compared to 36 percent of mid-cap companies (up from 7 percent in 2014) and 32 percent of small-cap companies (up from 15 percent in 2014).
• 26 percent of S&P 500 companies disclose that the evaluation of the external auditor is at least an annual event (up from 4 percent in 2014), compared to 17 percent of mid-cap companies (up from 3 percent in 2014) and 12 percent of small-cap companies (up from 4 percent in 2014).

In addition to presenting statistics on disclosure trends, the Barometer offers disclosure examples to illustrate how audit committees are enhancing information for investors and others.