PCAOB Posts Critical Audit Matters Spotlight

Washington, DC, Dec. 10, 2019

The PCAOB today posted to its website a Critical Audit Matters (CAMs) Spotlight(PDF). Consistent with the Board’s strategic goal of providing more useful and timely information, we believe that sharing our initial observations from the experiences of the first adopters of CAM requirements could help auditors, companies, audit committees, and other stakeholders.

In 2019, we selected 12 audits of large accelerated filers with fiscal years ending on or after June 30, 2019, to specifically review how auditors of these filers implemented the CAM requirements. This Spotlight focuses on observations from our inspections of these new requirements and from our outreach and data analysis activities.

This publication is the first Spotlight produced by PCAOB staff. The information in this CAMs Spotlight is not staff guidance; rather, it highlights timely and relevant observations for auditors and other key stakeholders. PCAOB staff plan to share insights on additional topics in future Spotlight documents.

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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, including compliance reports filed pursuant to federal securities laws.