ThinkTWENTY20

  • HOME
  • ERIC'S BLOG
  • FORUM
      • Hey! What's New?
  • ABOUT US
  • REGISTER
      • ThoughtLeader Gateway
  • EVENTS

What’s the Next Step for the Electronic Distribution of Business Reporting information electronically?

on 15 July 2019

A twenty-two year old graduating from university has never known a day without the Web (other than limitations to their own access). The electronic distribution of information is the de facto method for most purposes. Phone books, newspapers, books, magazines, paper mail – all moving to electronic distribution.

To this day, however, it’s easy to take the position that the US Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) notes that electronic distribution of financial statements are not the new “original document”, but just “information” over which the auditor has no responsibility. (See https://pcaobus.org/Standards/Auditing/Pages/AI20.aspx)

“Electronic sites are a means of distributing information [my emphasis] and are not "documents," as that term is used in AS 2710 …  [A]uditors are not required by AS 2710 to read information contained in electronic sites, or to consider the consistency of other information (as that term is used in AS 2710) in electronic sites with the original documents”

Where has the last twenty years of electronic reporting taken us? Have we leveraged the thought leadership of groups brought together by the US FASB or the IASC (now the IASB) in their considerations of the benefits of the electronic distribution of business reports? Read the following, and see how two decades of reality have matched up with possibilities and potential:

FASB: BRRP Business Reporting Research Project Electronic Distribution of Business Reporting Information (January 2000)

https://www.fasb.org/brrp/brrp1.shtml

IASC: Business Reporting on the Internet (November 1999)

https://www.icjce.es/images/pdfs/TECNICA/C02%20-%20IASB/C208%20-%20IASB%20-%20Estudios%20y%20varios/BusinessReportingInternet-IASC.pdf

(Note: “At IASB's meeting in May 2001, IASB concluded that the project should be handed over to the International Federation of Accountants, who are working on a similar project. IASB concluded that the project "went further than financial reporting" and "should not be published by IASB but at the discretion of IFAC".)

https://www.iasplus.com/en/projects/completed/fs/project94

 

 

 

Leave a comment

    Comments

    • No comments found
    Powered by Komento
    Forum Recent Posts
    The Independent Review Committee on Standard Setting in Canada Issues it's Final Report.
    Wednesday, 01 March 2023

    English

    Media Release – Independent review concludes, setting the stage for the future of Canadian accounting, auditing, and sustainability standard setting (frascanada.ca)

    The Independent Review Committee on Standard Setting in Canada issued its final recommendations report. The recommendations aim to ensure Canadian accounting and auditing – and now sustainability reporting and assurance – standard setting continues to be independent and internationally recognized. A summary feedback statement will soon be issued, outlining the feedback the committee received during its consultation process.

    New Limitations for External auditors and Their Reliance on the Work of Internal Auditors
    Monday, 27 February 2023

    The recent proposed rules from the PCAOB updating the confirmation standard, AS2310, caused some ruffled feathers when it added new limitations related to the external auditor and reliance on the work of internal auditors. Where the existing 2310, which was developed in large part by using the AICPA's AU 330 almost verbatim, pointed to existing standards related to the external auditor and their reliance on the internal auditor (AS 2605), the new proposed AS2310 added specific restrictions; these include not letting internal auditors select the population, do the mailings and receive responses.

    ThinkTWENTY20 © 2023. Privacy Policy