The International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) has completed its clarity project, an initiative to update and reposition auditing standards in a form that is easier to understand, implement and translate. The clarified standards are effective for audits of financial statements for periods beginning on or after Dec. 15, 2009.
The project closed with the release of the final seven clarified International Standards on Auditing (ISAs). In all, the project gives auditors access to 36 clarified ISAs and a clarified International Standard on Quality Control. The standards are available in a new Clarity Center on the IAASB Web site.
The IAASB is an independent standard-setting board within the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC). “We anticipate that the completion of the clarity project will bring further momentum to the convergence process,” Jim Sylph, IFAC’s executive director, professional standards, said in a press release.
The AICPA’s Auditing Standards Board is working on a similar clarity project, through which all of its auditing standards will be redrafted over the next two to three years. The goal of the clarity project is to make auditing standards easier to read, understand and apply. Consistent with the ASB’s strategy to converge its standards with those of the IAASB, each proposed standard has been redrafted using the corresponding ISA as the basis.
