In December, the PCAOB posted a report on the results of its 2019
conversations with almost 400 audit committee chairs, focused on
audit committee perspectives on audit quality assessment and
improvement, auditor communications, new auditing and accounting
standards, and technology and innovation. Valuably, the report
identifies practices—not necessarily endorsed by the
PCAOB—that the committee chairs found to be most effective
for improving audit quality across these categories. The report
also includes a few PCAOB staff responses to FAQs raised during the
conversations.
Audit Committee Chair Conversations with the PCAOB
Audit Quality
The PCAOB found that, with regard to audit quality, most audit
committee chairs focused on their own audit engagement teams, less
so on firmwide metrics. They tended to view judgment as the most
critical issue, but acknowledged that it is a difficult quality to
measure. Few indicated concerns about the use of shared
