PCAOB Updates Research and Standard-Setting Agendas

The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) today updated its research and standard-setting agendas. As part of the Board’s ongoing efforts to enhance transparency and provide more timely and relevant information to our stakeholders, we have decided to modernize our approach to managing our agendas. Going forward, we plan to include in our agendas only those specific projects where we anticipate we will have a public milestone (e.g., a proposal, a staff publication, or a concept release) in the next 12 to 18 months.

Consistent with our new approach and to align the research and standard-setting agendas with our current priorities, we have made the following changes:

• We have added Auditor Independence to the standard-setting agenda to make targeted amendments to existing PCAOB independence rules to conform to changes the SEC is considering to its independence rules.
• We have added a project to our research agenda on Audit Evidence to consider whether standard-setting or staff guidance is needed, given (1) the increasing prevalence of technology-based tools and (2) use of information from sources external to the company, both in the financial reporting process and as audit evidence.
• We have removed Going Concern from our standard-setting agenda and Other Information and Noncompliance with Laws and Regulation from our research agenda. Following significant work on these projects, we have concluded that there is not a need at present to change our standards or take other action on these topics.

The projects on Quality Control, Other Auditors and Data and Technology remain on our agendas as priorities of the Board. Although we have removed certain topics from our research and standard-setting agendas, we continue to monitor relevant developments on these and many other topics, particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our monitoring activities—along with prior research, new challenges, or other issues that may arise—could result in new projects being added to our agendas in the future.

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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.