Auditing Standards Board (ASB)
Website: www.aicpa.org
The Auditing Standards Board (ASB) is the AICPA’s senior committee for auditing, attestation, and quality control applicable to the performance and issuance of audit and attestation reports for nonissuers. The ASB promulgates Statements on Auditing Standards (SAS), Statements on Standards for Attestation Engagements (SSAE) and Statements on Quality Control Standards (SQCS), and, as a part of its due process, releases Exposure Drafts of proposed standards.
Recent Developments – Past 90 days
Select News Releases
ASB corrects clarified auditing standard AU-C 920
ASB - 3/15/2013
The ASB has made a correction to an auditing section in the AICPA Professional Standards to reinforce the board's intentions not to change practice and to avoid unintended consequences. The auditing (AU) sections were redrafted as part of the clarity project to reflect the ASB’s established clarity drafting conventions, and are designed to make the clarified standards easier to read, understand, and apply.
ASB begins 'attestation standards' clarity project
ASB - 2/19/2013
To address concerns about the clarity, length, and complexity of its standards, the ASB is clarifying the professional standards it issues. The objective of the ASB’s "clarity project" is to clarify and converge AICPA audit, attest, and quality control standards with those of the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB). The ASB, which has substantially completed clarifying Statements on Auditing Standards (SASs), has moved on to clarifying Statements on Standards for Attestation Engagements, also commonly known as the attestation standards. The attestation standards establish requirements for performing and reporting on examinations, reviews, and agreed-upon procedures that address subject matter other than financial statements, for example, a schedule of investment returns, the effectiveness of an entity’s controls over the security of a system, the fairness of the presentation of a statement of greenhouse gas emissions, and the privacy of personal information.
Final rules
SOP 13-1, Attest Engagements on Greenhouse Gas Emissions Information
ASB - 05/2/2013
Statement of Position (SOP) 13-1, Attest Engagements on Greenhouse Gas Emissions Information, provides guidance to CPAs on how to apply the attestation standards to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reporting. This SOP provides guidance to practitioners performing an examination or a review of a GHG emissions statement containing either (1) a schedule with the subject matter, or (2) an assertion.
SAS 127, Omnibus Statement on Auditing Standards - 2013
ASB - 01/07/2013
SAS No. 127 amends SAS No. 122, Statements on Auditing Standards: Clarification and Recodification, section 600, “Special Considerations—Audits of Group Financial Statements (Including the Work of Component Auditors),” and SAS No. 122 section 800, “Special Considerations—Audits of Financial Statements Prepared in Accordance With Special Purpose Frameworks.” The amendment to AU-C section 600 addresses circumstances in which the auditor of the group financial statements may make reference to the audit of a component auditor. The amendment to AU-C section 800 adds an other basis of accounting as a special purpose framework.