Among all the difficulties the COVID-19 outbreak has thrust on businesses, CPAs must understand they too will be facing numerous challenges when performing financial statement audits.

Whether or not practitioners can assist their audit clients with financial statement presentation, or any nonattest services, and maintain their independence has been a long-running debate. To ensure that auditors remain independent, the AICPA Professional Ethics Executive Committee (PEEC) and the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) have created complex and detailed rules.

AICPA's Hosting Services Interpretation concludes that when members provide hosting services, they are maintaining internal control over a client’s data or records, which presents a threat to independence. There are several practical issues you may face as a result of the interpretation.

As a part of its Enhancing Audit Quality Initiative, the AICPA has identified inconsistencies across the administering entities in the program that have impacted the quality of peer reviews. To address audit quality issues, the AICPA Peer Review Board issued several concept papers on how peer review will be administered in the future.

PICPA’s Accounting and Auditing Procedures Committee has been following the AICPA Auditing Standards Board’s (ASB) project on auditor’s reports to evaluate its impact on privately held companies. On Nov. 28, 2017, the ASB finally issued an exposure document.