AICPA offers guidance on third-party assessment engagements

The American Institute of CPAs released a set of technical questions and answers on performing a third-party assessment engagement, offering what it called “non-authoritative” guidance on third-party assessment programs, describing the steps practitioners should follow when conducting such engagements.

The guidance stresses that practitioners have to comply with the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct and the requirements or instructions of the third-party assessment program. It also answers two questions:

• What is a third-party assessment program?

• Which professional standards is the member required to apply to the third-party assessment engagement?

According to the new guidance, a practitioner is not required to follow the attestation standards unless the practitioner is engaged to perform an attestation engagement. The guidance also clarifies the recommendation that the Statement on Standards for Consulting Services may be applied. In addition, the document reminds practitioners of the different independence requirements that apply when performing third-party assessment engagements.

“It is in the public interest that CPA firms perform third party assessment engagements,” said Jennifer Burns, chair of the AICPA Third-Party Assessments Working Group and incoming AICPA chief auditor, in a statement Tuesday. “These TQAs provide needed clarity on how CPA firms may perform this work today under current AICPA professional standards. Members of AICPA’s Assurance Services Executive Committee (ASEC), Auditing Standards Board (ASB), Professional Ethics Executive Committee (PEEC), related working groups, and AICPA staff were instrumental in providing input on the development of these TQAs and I thank them for their collaboration.”