PCAOB Makes Available New Downloadable Datasets Featuring PCAOB Inspection Findings From Audit Firm Inspection Reports

Continuing its efforts to increase transparency and leverage inspection data to drive audit quality, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) announced the availability of new and enhanced downloadable datasets related to PCAOB inspection reports.

Found on the PCAOB website’s Firm Inspection Reports page, the new datasets contain multiple years of information related to PCAOB inspections findings. Prior to today’s release, this information was only available in the individual PDF versions of firm inspection reports released by the PCAOB. Stakeholders, including members of the PCAOB’s Investor Advisory Group and Standards and Emerging Issues Advisory Group, have expressed interest in having more access to PCAOB data in machine-readable formats.

“PCAOB inspection reports have always been a data-rich resource for investors and others,” said PCAOB Chair Erica Y. Williams. “With the release of these downloadable datasets, we are continuing our efforts to drive audit quality by increasing transparency.”

The two new datasets – which are available in three formats (CSV, XML, and JSON) – contain information from Part I.A and Part I.B of PCAOB inspection reports for use in different applications (e.g., Excel), platforms, or systems. Year-by-year information in these datasets goes back to 2018 for annually-inspected firms and 2019 for triennially-inspected firms and will be updated on a quarterly basis in the future.

Part I.A of PCAOB inspection reports discusses deficiencies, if any, that were of such significance that PCAOB staff believes the audit firm, at the time it issued its audit report(s), had not obtained sufficient appropriate audit evidence to support its opinion on the public company’s financial statements and/or internal control over financial reporting (ICFR). The Part I.A dataset provides the entire description of each Part I.A deficiency and also includes the following attributes related to the deficiencies:

• Issuer reference key tying the deficiency shown in the dataset to the issuer as shown in Part I.A. of the inspection report (Each issuer is identified by a letter in Part I.A.– e.g., “Issuer A.”)
• Indicator of whether the firm was the principal auditor or played a role but was not the principal auditor.
• Audits affected by the deficiencies identified in Part I.A (i.e., financial statement audit and/or the ICFR audit).
• Classification of audits with Part I.A deficiencies (i.e., audits with multiple deficiencies, single deficiency, or with an incorrect opinion on the financial statements and/or ICFR).
• Audit area.
• Firm-identified risk assessment, if applicable (i.e., fraud risk, significant risk).
• Auditing standard.
• Paragraph of the auditing standard.

Part I.B of PCAOB inspection reports discusses instances of noncompliance with PCAOB standards or rules that do not relate directly to the sufficiency or appropriateness of evidence the audit firm obtained to support its opinion(s), such as critical audit matters and Form AP. The Part I.B dataset provides the entire description of each Part I.B deficiency and the auditing standard related to the deficiency.

In addition to the two new datasets, the PCAOB enhanced the existing downloadable dataset that is focused on firm-level information for the more than 4,000 inspection reports that have been published by the PCAOB. First released in July 2023, this dataset now provides additional detail about the audits selected for review in a given inspection, to the extent the information was included in the public portion of a firm inspection report.

Building on Recent Transparency Initiatives

The PCAOB continues to increase the availability of inspection information that is relevant, reliable, and useful for investors and other stakeholders. Today’s release of datasets follows other recent initiatives in this area.

• In August 2024, the PCAOB began to publish online charts that illustrate much of the data in the U.S. Global Network Firms and U.S. annual Non-Affiliate Firms inspection reports.
• In July 2023, the PCAOB unveiled six new search filters on the PCAOB’s Firm Inspection Reports page to help users analyze thousands of inspection reports, as well as the first downloadable dataset.
• In May 2023, the PCAOB enhanced its inspection reports with a new section on auditor independence and a range of other improvements, including more information related to fraud procedures.

Investors and other stakeholders can learn more about PCAOB inspections on the PCAOB’s Inspections page. Visit the Staff Publications page on the PCAOB website to find more perspective on the PCAOB’s activities and observations.

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About the PCAOB

The PCAOB is a nonprofit corporation established by Congress to oversee the audits of public companies in order to protect investors and further the public interest in the preparation of informative, accurate, and independent audit reports. The PCAOB also oversees the audits of brokers and dealers registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including compliance reports filed pursuant to federal securities laws.