AICPA Proposes New Quality Management Standards for CPA Firm Audit Quality

The American Institute of CPAs’ (AICPA) Auditing Standards Board (ASB) has issued the exposure draft (ED), Proposed Quality Management Standards, that includes three interrelated standards that address the way CPA firms manage quality for their accounting and auditing practices. The standards offer a new proactive, risk-based approach to effective quality management systems within CPA firms, which will improve the scalability of the standards and promote a system tailored to the firm and its engagements.

“As the environment in which practitioners offer services becomes more diverse, it’s more important than ever for CPA firms to tailor their quality management processes to their circumstances and maintain and enhance audit quality,” said Tracy Harding, CPA, AICPA Auditing Standards Board Chair. “Our proposed revisions to the quality management standards offer CPA firms a framework for developing a quality management system that addresses each firm’s practice. The framework is converged with international standards so that firms performing engagements under those standards and generally accepted auditing standards (GAAS) use a consistent approach to quality management.”

The ED aligns with the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board’s (IAASB) quality management standards. The proposed standards include changes such as using the terms quality management and engagement quality review instead of quality control and engagement quality control review, respectively, used in the current standards.

The three proposed standards are:

Proposed Statement on Quality Management Standards (SQMS) A Firm’s System of Quality Management
Proposed SQMS Engagement Quality Reviews
Proposed Statement on Auditing Standards (SAS) Quality Management for an Engagement Conducted in Accordance with Generally Accepted Auditing Standards

The proposed standards would supersede Statement on Quality Control Standards No. 8, create a new QM section in AICPA Professional Standards and supersede SAS No. 122, as amended, section 220, Quality Control for an Engagement Conducted in Accordance with Generally Accepted Auditing Standards.

Interested parties are encouraged to submit their feedback to the ASB at CommentLetters@aicpa-cima.com by June 11, 2021. The ASB intends to begin addressing feedback at their July 26-29 meeting, and devote the entire August 11 meeting to further consideration of the feedback.

The ASB is the senior technical committee of the AICPA designated to issue auditing, attestation, and quality control standards applicable to the performance and issuance of audit and attestation reports for non-issuers. Its mission is to develop and communicate comprehensive performance, reporting, and quality control standards and practice guidance to enable auditors of non-issuers to provide high quality, objective audit and attestation services at a reasonable cost and in the best interests of the profession and the beneficiaries of those services, with the ultimate purpose of serving the public interest by improving existing and enabling new audit and attestation services.

The American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) is the world’s largest member association representing the CPA profession, with more than 431,000 members in the United States and worldwide, and a history of serving the public interest since 1887. AICPA members represent many areas of practice, including business and industry, public practice, government, education, and consulting. The AICPA sets ethical standards for its members and U.S. auditing standards for private companies, nonprofit organizations, and federal, state, and local governments. It develops and grades the Uniform CPA Examination, offers specialized credentials, builds the pipeline of future talent, and drives professional competency development to advance the vitality, relevance, and quality of the profession.