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October 2009 |  Article

The PCAOB on July 28 passed an auditing standard, Engagement Quality Review (EQR), requiring an independent reviewer to perform EQRs and superseding the existing concurring partner review requirement. If approved by the SEC, the standard will take effect for EQRs of audits and interim reviews for fiscal years that begin on or after Dec.

July 2009 |  BY THOMAS A. RATCLIFFE, CHARLES E. LANDES, MICHAEL P. GLYNN |  Article

The AICPA’s Accounting and Review Services Committee (ARSC) has proposed the most significant changes to the professional literature for compilation and review engagements since the December 1978 issuance of SSARS no. 1, Compilation and Review of Financial Statements. The proposed Statements on Standards for Accounting and Review Services (SSARSs), issued in April for public comment, were developed to address concerns shared by smaller business owners, users of small business financial statements and CPAs that serve smaller entities and to provide more flexibility in a complex practice environment.

July 2009 |  BY Thomas A. Ratcliffe, Charles E. Landes, Michael P. Glynn |  Article

Editor's note This article is a sidebar to A Fresh Approach for Compilation and Review. Based on concerns expressed by stakeholders in compilation and review engagements, the Accounting and Review Services Committee (ARSC) turned to the AICPA’s Private Companies Practice Section (PCPS) for help in its consideration of how to proceed with any potential changes to the standards for compilation and review engagements.

July 2009 |  BY Thomas A. Ratcliffe, Charles E. Landes, Michael P. Glynn |  Article

Editor's note This is a Webexclusive sidebar to A Fresh Approach for Compilation and Review. At the time that the AICPA Reliability Task Force communicated its recommendations to ARSC, ARSC was undergoing a major project to recodify the standards for compilation and review engagements. ARSC had determined that, if the standards for compilation and review engagements were separated into distinct chapters by engagement type, practitioners would be better able to understand and apply the professional literature.

July 2009 |  BY ALEXANDRA DEFELICE |  Article

The PCAOB on Tuesday passed an auditing standard, Engagement Quality Review, requiring an independent reviewer to perform EQRs and superseding the existing concurring partner review requirement. If approved by the SEC, the standard will take effect for the EQR of audits and interim reviews for fiscal years that begin on or after Dec.

May 2009 |  BY G. WILLIAM GRAHAM |  Article

Editor's note G. William Graham is the AICPA Peer Review Board chair. The effects of the newly revised AICPA Standards on Performing and Reporting on Peer Reviews (Standards) will be farreaching. They directly impact more than 30,000 firms enrolled in the AICPA’s practicemonitoring program. In addition, the revised standards affect other stakeholders including those responsible for firms’ qualitycontrol functions, administering entities, peer reviewers, and regulators.

May 2009 |  Article

The AICPA’s Accounting and Review Services Committee (ARSC) issued an exposure draft that would revise the standards for compilation and review engagements. The changes would affect the interplay between the standards and independence rules, permitting an accountant to issue a review report on financial statements when the accountant’s independence is impaired by performing nonattest services that were designed to improve the reliability of the client’s financial information.

March 2009 |  Article

The Accounting and Review Services Committee issued Interpretation no. 31, Preparation of Financial Statements for Use by an Entity’s Auditors, of AR section 100, Compilation and Review of Financial Statements. The document, available at httptinyurl.com7z9o24, provides guidance for situations in which a client engages an accountant, other than its auditor, to prepare unaudited financial statements on behalf of management and in which those financial statements are provided by management to its outside auditor for the purposes of the annual audit.

December 2008 |  Article

The AICPA’s Accounting and Review Services Committee issued an exposure draft of a proposed Statement on Standards for Accounting and Review Services (SSARS), Applicability of Statements on Standards for Accounting and Review Services. The exposure draft proposes to amend AR section 100. Under the proposal, SSARSs would not apply when the provisions of AU section 722, Interim Financial Information, apply.

October 2008 |  BY F. Todd DeZoort, David K. Morgan, Thomas A. Ratcliffe, Mark H. Taylor |  Article

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Current technical literature precludes CPAs from performing review engagements when independence is impaired and requires modifying reports to disclose lack of independence in compilation engagements. The AICPA Reliability Task Force asserts that the conceptual foundation regarding the services CPAs provide to clients should be modified to refocus on reliable financial statements as the end game.