Audit

The Information Systems Audit and Control Association has released the third edition of its IT Control Objectives for Sarbanes-Oxley to help information technology professionals focus on performing an IT assessment for financial reporting controls in line with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.

The Center for Audit Quality has published a member alert to help auditing firms address risks on audits on upcoming audits, highlighting some that officials with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board also pointed to during a conference Thursday.

On Thursday, Thomson Reuters released a special report, Retrospective on Key Tax Developments in 2014, providing a thorough briefing of key developments in 2014, including the tax extender provisions as well as many of the rates, dollar caps, and other key figures that changed over the course of the year.

The American Institute of CPAs’ Employee Benefit Plan Audit Quality Center has released an advisory document on the importance of hiring a quality auditor to perform employee benefit plan financial statement audits, along information to help select a quality auditor.

Online audit confirmation provider Confirmation.com said Tuesday it has acquired LegalConfirm, a Maryland-based provider of electronic legal confirmations.

The International Accounting Standards Board has launched a new program in tandem with some of the largest financial firms in a bid to elicit closer ties with investors and investment firms.

Prompter disclosure of corporate audit fees would help investors, according to a new study that found sudden increases in audit fees may be a sign of trouble at companies.

The Center for Audit Quality and Audit Analytics teamed up on an analysis of 2014 audit committee disclosures in proxy statements to assess the effectiveness of the disclosures by public companies of their relationships with auditors and found that many public companies are suffering from disclosure overload.

The Center for Audit Quality has issued a request for proposals to fund independent academic research on auditing-related topics.

Deloitte LLP said it’s cooperating with Saudi Arabian regulators on a dispute that threatens to ban the firm from auditing listed companies in the kingdom.

BDO said Monday that its network of member firms around the world achieved $7.02 billion in revenue for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2014, an increase of 8.8 percent from last year.

Financial reporting has been largely stagnant over the last hundred years.

Minnesota firm takes on 37 new engagements in the third quarter.

A roundup of recent assurance news.

Office moves, awards and more …

Two of the Big Four accounting firms are teaming up with technology companies to see how technology can be used to encourage more companies to do integrated reporting.

The International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants has proposed tougher rules to discourage accountants from providing misleading financial information about businesses.

In a new analysis released today, spend management solutions and services provider Concur, supported by data from reservation service Table8, has found that business dining has become a driving force in growing restaurant sales - a trend likely to only increase in the coming months.

The CFO role is continuing to expand, particularly to human resources and information technology, according to a recent survey.

The AICPA announced today a large step forward in collaborating with the Instituto Nacional de Contadores Públicos (INCP), Colombia’s largest member organization representing public accountants, as the South American nation prepares itself for a single set of high quality international accounting standards.