Assurance Update - 2022

Course Objective.

The objective of the Assurance Update is to provide practitioners and firms with an overview of recent changes to assurance standards. The course will review recently issued standards, the status of current projects and recent exposure.

The course will examine:

Canadian Auditing Standards:

Exposure drafts

Active Projects

·         Audit Evidence – Driven by the growing use of technology in audits this project is examining the nature and extent of audit evidence and the need for exercising professional skepticism.   The project will lead to changes in CAS 500 Audit Evidence, which was issued in 2009.

·         Fraud – In light of several high-profile international corporate failures and significant accounting restatements have put a spotlight the area of fraud and the auditor’s roles and responsibilities relating to fraud detection.  The IAASB has approved a project to examine ISA (CAS) 240 following the discussion paper issued in February 2021.

Standard issued:

·         CAS 600, Special Considerations—Audits of Group Financial Statements (Including the Work of Component Auditors) – Exposure draft was issued in May 2020 and the final standard will be issued in 2022.   The revised standard clarifies the actions of the group auditor when communicating with component auditors, including communications relevant to the design of responses to assessed risks of material misstatement.   The standards also makes conforming changes to recently updated CASs such as

·         CAS 315 (Revised), Identifying and Assessing the Risks of Material Misstatement through Understanding the Entity and Its Environment – The session will briefly examine key changes from CAS 315, assessing and evaluating inherent risks, assessing and documenting the risk of material misstatement and the impact of CAS 330.18 stand-back procedures on your audit plan.   This standard represents a significant change from the old standard.  (Note: Since a full session is available on this topic, it will only be covered at a high level during this session).

Other Canadian Standards

Standard issued:

·         Quality Control – AASB approved Canadian Standard on Quality Management (CSQM) 1, Quality Management for Firms that Perform Audits or Reviews of Financial Statements, or Other Assurance or Related Services Engagements; CSQM 2, Engagement Quality Reviews; and CAS 220, Quality Management for an Audit of Financial Statements.  These new quality management standards represent a significant change from the existing standards in designing, implementing, and maintaining a system of quality management.  The sessions will briefly examine some of the key differences between the standards and how this will impact a firms existing quality control system. (Note: Since a full session is available on this topic, it will only be covered at a high level during this session).