This article was originally published in Public Finance Focus.

Last week, the International Monetary Fund announced a grim economic outlook for the world, predicting that the global economy will likely suffer the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression—with a global economic contraction of 3% in 2020 alone.

Governments are taking swift action to tackle the unprecedented combination of major simultaneous public health and economic crises. Among the G20 revenue and expenditure measures have totalled on average 3.5% of GDP, with further loans and guarantees totalling an additional 10% of GDP in some countries. While interventions have varied, there has been a concerted effort to get cash and resources to where they are most needed—quickly.

The scale of these interventions means that the pandemic will also have profound and long-lasting impacts on government finances, the ramifications of which will need to be thoroughly analysed. This is important to everyone, since government finances are already a significant part of each country’s economy, and this will increase following the crisis. High-quality financial reporting helps ensure that all stakeholders, from everyday taxpayers and recipients of government services, to policy makers, businesses, and investors, receive reliable and transparent information about their government’s activities. It also results in increased economic stability and greater societal trust—two things the world desperately needs right now.

Many of the current economic debates are over how long and deep the looming recession will be, and the extent to which government interventions will minimise economic ‘scarring’ through job losses and business and personal bankruptcies. These macroeconomic impacts will inevitably have both short and longer-term consequences for future government revenues. However, there is a myriad other questions about the detailed financial impacts of Covid-19 related government interventions. Only high-quality financial reporting can provide the full answers required for good decision-making.

Unfortunately, unlike in the private sector, high quality accrual-based financial reports are not a tool currently available to many governments around the world. In 2018, only 25% of the governments reported using accrual-based accounting, though this number is predicted to rise to 65% in the coming years. .

Using the analysis provided by the IMF, key questions about the impact of the broad–ranging fiscal measures being implemented by governments include:

• Are the payments made to support businesses—for example to ‘furlough’ staff—irrecoverable current expenditure or are they potentially recoverable? If so, what proportion will be recoverable, and over what period?
• Should tax measures, such as delayed payment dates, be recorded as normal, albeit longer-term receivables? Or will there be permanent revenue losses as business insolvencies increase?
• What is the nature and scale of the various government guarantees being provided? Does the support provided for some organisations mean they are now state owned?
• What is the relationship between the government and its central bank, and how should additional ‘quantitative easing’ be reported?

These are very real, and highly material, questions to which conventional debt-based economic indicators can only give partial answers. The International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) that the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (IPSASB) has developed - the equivalent of the private sector IFRS that the majority of listed companies globally use, can help provide more complete answers to these.

Any real economic comparators for the impacts of the pandemic date back to the Second World War. And even then, the economic shift was not as rapid we have seen with Covid-19.

Another point in time that bears some similarities—the 2008 global banking crisis—had smaller and more concentrated impacts than are likely to result from Covid-19. An idea of the extent of what is to come, however, can be seen in the UK government’s consolidated public sector accounts. During the banking crisis, the government was forced to acquire significant parts of the financial sector. This caused an ‘explosion’ in both sides of its balance sheet, which has even now not been fully unwound as the timeline shows.

Covid-19 will undoubtedly have even larger, more complex, and more long-lasting adverse impacts around world, which will vary significantly between countries. Policymakers, international institutions, and markets need comparable financial reports to make sound decisions. Achieving comparability in government financial statements will require globally applicable financial reporting standards that address public sector needs. These should form an integral part of the coordinated measures and collaboration between global standard setters and multilateral institutions that the B20 calls for in its Statement on Trade and Finance.

At this stage in the pandemic, improving government accounting may not seem a high priority, but it could truly be a lifesaver. By providing the complete picture of the state of a government’s finances necessary for strong future fiscal projections, high-quality financial reports based on international accounting standards can help politicians make the right long-term choices for their countries that will be even more essential in the demanding post COVID-19 world. They can also help convince potential funders that they should provide the support required to implement them.

The IMF called last week for governments to ‘do whatever it takes but keep the receipts’. This is certainly true. But they must then use those receipts to prepare the full accrual-based financial reports that will be essential in making the tough decisions that lie ahead.

President Gupta, ICAI leadership, distinguished colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, my name is In-Ki Joo. I am President of IFAC, the International Federation of Accountants.

I am proud to represent all of IFAC’s members and the work we do in a global context. It is my privilege and honor to speak with you.

Part of what brings us together today is also, of course, what is keeping us apart. Just two months ago, we didn’t expect the coronavirus would develop into pandemic that it has today. Now, it is afflicting almost every country throughout the world.

It is continuing to cause unprecedented challenges to our humanity, in terms of the public healthcare, economic stability and politics and culture.

It also now causes critical challenges to our profession.

I hope and I am sure that the world will cope with these challenges wisely and quickly through worldwide collaboration. I would like to thank you for accommodating my participation from afar, at my home in Seoul.

As we talk about global challenges and smart solutions, your thoughtful and proactive response to this crisis—balancing practical realities with our need to persist in our work—is a testament to your vision and leadership.

And I would like to congratulate you for this outstanding conference. I understand that about 50,000 people are joining this conference. Well done!

ICAI is one of IFAC’s more than 170 members in more than 130 countries, which together represent more than 3 million professional accountants. Since ICAI joined the IFAC family in 1977, ICAI members have served with distinction on the IFAC Board, its committees, and the international standard-setting boards that IFAC supports.

I want to acknowledge the service and leadership of several of your members:

• IESBA member Sanjiv Kumar Chaudhary
• My IFAC Colleague Kumar Raghu
• My IFAC Colleague and past CAPA president Manoj Fadnis
• My IFAC Colleague Naveen Gupta
• My IFAC Colleague, and your former president and Chair of the Executive Committee of the World Congress of Accountants 2022 Prafulla Chhajed

Thank you all for your commitment to the profession.

Now to turn to the topic at hand:

We know that COVID-19 is turning the world upside-down, but as a profession we can—and must—work to provide the essential services we need to bring to the global economy and civil society.

This conference, with the impressive lineup of speakers you have invited from around the world, is exactly the kind of engagement the profession needs right now. This crisis is worldwide; we are all facing the same problems, and we all need solutions.

The author of Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari, predicted that after the storm passes, we will inhabit a different world. We may not be sure what kind of the world we are going to face, but this different world will include:

1. More digital communications rather than in-person contacts.
2. More environmental and public health protection.

On the other hand, the current business environments is being severely disrupted. As the result of lockdowns everywhere, closed borders are disrupting business locally and internationally, we have found that global economic cooperation is easily disrupted by the closed factories in affected regions.

This phenomenon has caused supply chain problems for global production lines from platform companies to local suppliers. Due to a severe lack of business transactions, a cash shortage and a dramatic decrease in profits awaits almost every business.

These companies, especially small- and medium-sized entities (SMEs), do not have enough cash to endure the several months during which there will be no sales. These types of businesses will soon face extreme liquidity problems with the distinct possibility of them becoming bankrupt.

This phenomenon threatens to be common across the world and hits SMEs and small- and medium-sized practices (SMPs) hardest.

Governments, societies, businesses, professionals, and every sector of society are making their best endeavors to stall this appalling chain reaction and restore the economy back to normal. Our profession, of course, should do its best to contribute to this endeavor.

As we can see in IFAC’s Vision, our profession is set to be essential to strong, sustainable organizations, financial markets, and economies.

Our profession must join the efforts in restoring the economy back to normal through persistent enhancement of the relevance and transparency of the business reports for decision makers and key stakeholders.

It is noted that in the US, the SEC released a public statement regarding the importance of disclosures related to COVID-19, particularly forward-looking disclosures to provide investors and the markets with information necessary to make informed decisions.

Integrated reporting can be an efficient and effective tool to communicate an entity’s strategies for the future to key stakeholders. But it becomes an even bigger challenge to prepare an integrated reporting under the current disruptive circumstances.

In addition to this, I would like to offer a few thoughts on how to handle what we have already seen, and how to prepare for challenges on the horizon.

Some challenges we are now facing.

We can see many things coming to our profession.

For organizations facing deadlines for reporting, for example, the loss of time and the restrictions of physical distancing will affect the ability of auditors, preparers, and issuers to do their jobs and report their findings promptly.

Our list of challenges is formidable and the uncertainty around them is significant.

• How will we respond to physical disruptions not only in our clients’ operations, but also our own?
• What if audit evidence available during this crisis is simply too little or too weak to inform an audit opinion in time for legal deadlines?
• How will asset devaluation affect the viability of countless businesses, and raise questions around Going Concern status?
• How will we deal with legal and contractual non-compliance as supply chains crumble and cash flows dry up?
• How will professional accountants meet their continuing professional development (CPD) requirements?
• What should we do to promote the well-being of individual professional accountants?
• And how do we handle the onboarding of new hires?

These are just a few of the many enormous questions we must answer. These questions are way more relevant to SMEs and SMPs.

The many insights of the contributors to our discussion today will help the accountancy profession learn, focus, and adapt. But we should not expect to solve all of our problems today. We will have to live with uncertainty about this virus—maybe for a long time.

We are used to the idea that change is coming.

The urgency and scale of the COVID-19 crisis is exceptional, but for professional accountants, the necessity of growth and adaptation is not. Fundamentally, our goals have not changed. A financial statement is still a financial statement, and an audit is still an audit. However, many of the ways we achieve them will change.

The imperative for all of us is creativity and flexibility. Using digital tools is a good place to start. Inventory observation, for example, cannot proceed in-person when lockdown orders keep auditors from visiting their clients. But some auditors might be able to video conference into their clients’ facilities to check inventory remotely.

Of course, this example that I have just raised is quite narrow compared to the broader issues we must consider. There might be dead-ends—things we find we cannot do right now, and that must be postponed.

These will be important issues to define and raise with clients and with regulators as soon as possible, as they will substantially affect audit opinions.

IFAC is working with firms, member organizations, and all others in the IFAC network to address these points.

This effort will be easier if we are all in it together, which brings me to my next point. 

We must learn from each other.

Many organizations are publishing material about reporting and assurance services during the COVID-19 crisis. I commend ICAI for being a leader among them.

Your piece, “The Impact of Coronavirus on Financial Reporting and the Auditors Consideration,” for example, is a remarkably thorough and helpful document, both for its specific guidance to Indian professional accountants, and for its general comments on the impact of COVID-19 on reporting and assurance.

We have posted a link to that piece on IFAC’s dedicated COVID-19 resources page.

We have found thought guidance from all over our network, including many content hubs hosted by member organizations with an outstanding breadth and depth of information. We see that SMPs and their SME clients are especially vulnerable to the financial and practical consequences of this crisis. As the profession is rallying to provide solutions and guides to navigating this crisis, we aim to get this information to SMPs and SMEs that might need it.

We recently updated the site to include online CPD opportunities shared by our member organizations that are being made available to each other, including ICAI’s.

The World Bank and some large firms have cited this IFAC initiative as a valuable platform. The material we have curated is a true testament of the profession coming together for the common good and in the public interest.

I encourage everyone, especially SMPs, to visit our page, and to explore what the accountancy profession is seeing and saying during this crisis.

IFAC is working to facilitate the exchange of ideas. Thank you for being partners in that exchange.

I would like to emphasize that we can learn from each other’s best practices.

ICAI has led by example with its digitalization of member and student services. This digital transition will be crucial for all PAOs in the immediate future.

We must learn from each other and collaborate with each other to cope with this unprecedented situation and lead all efforts to ensure a better future.

IFAC as the global accountancy profession is in the best position to facilitate this collaboration across the world. The COVID-19 resources page is a good example.

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to emphasize two things.

• The digitalization in our daily life will proceed at a much faster speed.
• The world will become even closer and more cooperative rather than separated and isolated through our collaborative efforts in coping with the coronavirus across the globe.

No one knows when this global health emergency will subside. But in the meantime, as professional accountants we must carry on and keep sight of our goals. Our work in the public interest is more important now than ever.

It has been a great pleasure to join your conference today. I would like to wish you well.

Thank you.

Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Reporting and Assurance

Good morning from the Washington, DC, area, in the United States. I am honored to be invited to speak today. I thank the Institute and its leadership for organizing this conference. I greatly appreciate your efforts to galvanize the profession in its response to this truly global crisis. I look forward to hearing the remarks of the distinguished panelists.

My name is Tom Seidenstein, and I currently serve as chair of the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (the IAASB). I am sorry that my first formal interaction with the Indian Institute in my current role is under these circumstances. My hope is that in the not-so-distant future, we could meet in person, in much better times. For now, please accept my best wishes for the health and well-being of those attending the conference virtually, your families, and the broader communities in which you live and serve.

When I joined the IAASB nine months, I accepted this role with a core belief. Setting standards at the international level is the most effective way to respond to the relentless globalization of business and avoid the economic costs and regulatory arbitrage that come with a fragmentation in rules. Global approaches to global challenges. My belief in the value of global approaches remains firm. Of course, COVID-19 has created a global crisis, and the economy has been a major casualty.

In the brief time allocated to me, my remarks will focus on three areas:

• First, working together on both national and international levels, standard-setters, regulators, accounting and audit practitioners, preparers, and other stakeholders can make a meaningful difference in helping the economy get back on its feet.
• Second, the IAASB stands ready to support the public interest and the external reporting community. We will create targeted guidance, where appropriate, adapt our ways of working to be flexible to rapidly changing circumstances, and coordinate with key parties.
• Third, a few areas of our standards merit special consideration by the profession. These include going concern, auditor reporting, and auditing estimates.

Rising to the challenge and Restoring Confidence

I am sure that at some point this crisis will become very personal for everyone. Maybe it will be the favorite local business that needs to shut its doors. Or maybe the neighbor who loses her job. Or a friend that sadly catches the virus. I am certain that we will all be touched.

I have been inspired by how people are responding to the crisis. It seems as if we are trying to do the best to help. I am here to say that all involved with the world of accounting and auditing have an important role to play.

This is not the challenge that I imagined facing in my first year. However, it is the one that we collectively face, and together we should rise to meet it.

Now more than ever, we need confidence to return in order to enable capital to flow freely again and the economy to grow. Where we sit, it is sometimes easy to get lost in the technicalities of accounting and standard setting.  However, at its best, the profession can play a critical role in ensuring trust and confidence in markets.

Auditors are responding by adapting their ways of working and utilizing remote techniques and technology. It is no time to relax the commitment to the public interest. For the profession, this means adhering to the highest ethical standards, communicating intensively with preparers and those charged with governance, and applying both professional judgment and skepticism.

I often say that the financial reporting world works in a highly connected ecosystem. Preparers of financial information, standard-setters, and regulators also need to each perform their role for the system to work. A weakness in any one part of the reporting ecosystem will have reverberations throughout.

Standard setters and regulators are adapting. We do so with the recognition that we are operating in a period of enormous uncertainty, and that all judgments, even if appropriately reasoned, documented, and communicated, will not always be right in hindsight. However, we can do our best to provide greater guidance, when possible, to those trying their best to comply with our standards and rules. Standard setters need to exhibit a sense of flexibility in terms of our work program priorities and imposing additional requirements on our stakeholders.

IAASB Standard-Setting Response: Calibrating, Reacting Agility, and Coordinating

We at the IAASB are trying to practice what we preach. Our response is three-pronged:

1. We are calibrating our existing program to prioritize our COVID-19 response and other leading public interest issues on our work plan, including our Quality Management work, Going Concern and Fraud, and efforts aimed at reducing complexity for Less Complex Entities. I will discuss some of our specific COVID-19 guidance shortly.
2. We are embracing technology, as others are, to advance these priority projects and will be appropriately flexible when it comes to our previous agreed timelines. For example, we are about to publish our Exposure Draft on Group Audits. We have already agreed to an extended comment period. At our upcoming meeting in June, to be conducted via videoconference, we will discuss the impact of the current crisis on other work and effective dates.
3. We are coordinating with national audit standard-setters, securities regulators, independent audit regulators, the International Accounting Standards Board, and professional bodies, particularly via IFAC. Our aim is to share information and discuss how we are individually responding to the crisis. We are successfully identifying areas where more work is needed and hoping to avoid redundant or confusing efforts.

Areas of IAASB Focus to Help

A minute earlier, I mentioned that the IAASB is developing guidance in the form of Staff Alerts to help the profession to better apply our standards. These Staff Alerts do not change the requirements of the standards. The Alerts highlight specific areas of focus under the current environment. The IAASB has already published, on its Website, a general Staff Alert aimed at broader considerations. We are developing five more on Going Concern, Auditor Reporting, the Audit of Accounting Estimates, special considerations for public sector auditors, and subsequent events.

Let me touch on Going Concern, Auditor Reporting, and Audit of Accounting Estimates and give you a preview on what we expect to cover in our upcoming Staff Alerts. These three areas are the topics that come up most in my discussions. First, we believe our principles-based standards are robust enough to be adapted to the current environment, where there is a focus on uncertainty and judgment. We also need to keep in context the responsibilities of auditors (vis-à-vis the responsibilities of management) – neither of which is easy in these uncertain and unknown times.

In terms of going concern, our focus is on the auditor’s understanding of management’s process for meeting the requirements of the applicable financial reporting framework. That understanding will help the auditor determine whether what management’s presentation of the financial information in the financial statement is fine, whether highlighting something in the auditor’s report is needed, or whether further modification (such as a qualification or a disclaimer) is required.

We know in many instances this will be challenging, particularly where it is a ‘close call.’ We cannot mandate when modifications to the auditor’s report may or may not be needed (the standards set out what needs to be done). We do encourage a heightened sense of professional skepticism when undertaking this work.

Auditors can use Auditor Reporting as another way to enhance confidence in external reporting, including in areas such as going concern. Our standards set out circumstances when an emphasis of matter is needed or another modification, including qualification, disclaimer, or an adverse opinion. There may be considerably more circumstances now where modification may be needed. In-ki alluded to various scenarios where there may be issues around gathering audit evidence. In some cases, alternative procedures may provide what is needed; in other cases, the auditor may need to consider the impact on the auditor’s report.

Disclosure by management takes on ever increasing importance in these unprecedented times. While it will depend on the circumstances, I expect that users would expect increasing transparency related to current business risks and mitigation strategies. These disclosures will also support the work of auditors. Auditors should then focus on the relevant requirements in the financial reporting standards to ensure that appropriate and necessary disclosures are made and their impact on the auditor’s report. One area to provide further transparency is Key Audit Matters (KAMs) where they are used under ISAs. Particularly for listed companies, KAMs may play an important role in enhancing the information of the auditor’s report relating to matter that, although resolved, required significant auditor attention. KAMs may also be a useful way of highlighting some of the uncertainty and judgment needed by the auditor.

Finally, we expect the audit of accounting estimates to become even more important over the coming months. The IAASB cannot emphasize enough the need for a heightened professional skepticism when auditing accounting estimates. Our newly revised ISA 540 helps the auditor home in on those specific inherent risks attached to estimation uncertainty. The standards and our forthcoming guidance also highlight other inherent risk factors that need to be considered, even more so now. The reality is that last year’s approach may not work for the current circumstances. We expect disclosures of estimates to be a focus for auditors, as is the testing of controls.

Towards Better, More Confident Days

I have outlined the IAASB’s initial response to the crisis. I say initial response, because I know that there will be twist and turns. Through our coordination efforts, we know that we will need to adapt. However, I wish to convey that the IAASB is ready to play its role in helping to rebuild confidence in the global economy. The coming days, weeks, and maybe even months will inevitably be challenging. I am pleased that we stand well positioned to do our small part.

Good afternoon and good evening to the webinar participants from across the world. My name is Alan Johnson, Deputy President of IFAC, and it is an honour to be asked to make some closing remarks today.

I would firstly like to thank the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India President Atul Kumar Gupta, Vice President Nihar Jambusaria, our many presenters and audience participants. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India is a very active and important member of IFAC, and it was a great initiative to hold this Covid-19 webinar today to discuss some very relevant matters in these challenging times.

I am especially pleased that Dr. In-Ki Joo, President of IFAC, and Tom Seidenstein, Chair of the International Audit & Assurance Standards Board were able to participate today.

I also thank the Indian and international speakers for taking time out on Easter Monday to share their views on the Impact of Covid-19 pandemic of reporting and assurance. We have heard from speakers from four continents, Asia, Australasia, Europe and North America, from colleagues in Korea, India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Myanmar, Dubai, Australia, Spain, Ireland, UK, Romania, USA and Canada.

The insights shared over these last three hours have been most interesting, and not least because of the diversity of geographic views.

This shows the convening power of our global profession, coming together at time of need, to share our views from our different and various perspectives. This is the power of a global profession, willing to step up in our role to always work in the public interest.

Today’s webinar made a few things very clear.

• Quality audit, and indeed the work of our profession generally, remains as important as ever to the healthy functioning of global capital markets and economies.
• Our work is as important to multinational industries as it is to small businesses and in turn to communities, families, and individuals.
• All of us are facing some of the same issues around the world, albeit it in different ways
•  We have an enormous opportunity and responsibility to avoid fragmented responses to our current situations.
•  And, the only way we can truly fulfill our mission of acting in the public interest is by acting in coordination, not as unique entities.

 I have been most impressed with the response so far from the profession to our current situation. I see us responding quickly and decisively, and I encourage us all to stay the path.

The challenges we all face from the Covid-19 crisis call upon our profession to do what we do best, which is to use our skills and expertise to advise and support governments, businesses both large and small, entrepreneurs, and members of society generally to plot the paths to recover from the serious impact of Covid-19 across the world.

It is clear that the world was not prepared for a pandemic of this nature. Our risk assessments did not anticipate this satisfactorily, and where they did the mitigations were clearly not sufficient. What we must do is take some learnings from the situation we find ourselves in and ensure that we are better prepared for global crises in future.

It is impossible to say how long the lockdowns will last, or indeed how much damage will be done to economies and livelihoods, and how long it will take to recover fully. But we do know that the damage is already significant across the world, and millions if not billions of people will be impacted significantly.

There are a few points I would like to make in concluding the webinar today.

1. First, our professional skills and counsel have never been more important. We need to help guide our governments, our businesses large and small, and indeed individual members of society in planning beyond the crisis to support a resumption of economic activity.

2. Second, we are also going to see public sector financial management become more important than ever before, as governments around the world are called on to support their citizens in unprecedented ways and often without the infrastructure or standards by which to so. Again, this represents not only an opportunity for the profession, but a very important responsibility.

We must continue to campaign for improvements in public sector financial management, including the adoption of International Public Sector Accounting Standards, to help governments have greater visibility of their resources and commitments and make decisions based on sound financial management to help them deliver better services to societies.

Facilitating effective management of public assets has always been part of the mission of the International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board, or IPSASB, and they work closely with governments and other stakeholders to help facilitate the practical implementation of their standards.

One thing clearly coming out of this crisis is that governments generally have not invested sufficiently in basic public services, partly because of a lack of resources or other political priorities.

We need to focus carefully on the question of what role our profession should play in helping to enhance public sector accountability, and ensuring that investments are made to strengthen public services everywhere in the world.

3. Finally, as we go forward, we need to focus on the learnings from this crisis, with respect to being prepared to manage global crises and our risk management processes need to be strengthened.

We have an important role to help strengthen risk management, both in terms of helping governments and businesses to plan and prepare for extreme risks that are rare in frequency but are significant in impact.

Before I conclude, I want to say that I am so glad that so many of us are able to be here today, albeit virtually, because it means we are healthy. At the same time I recognise how fortunate we are, and my thoughts go to all families across the world that have lost loved ones prematurely.

There is no question that the heroes of today and tomorrow and, quite frankly, the foreseeable future, are the doctors, nurses, healthcare workers, researchers, scientists—everyone who is working to save lives and helping to protect us. We owe them an enormous debt of gratitude, a debt that we may never ever be able to repay fully.

I am convinced that our global profession has never had such important role as now to support society in tackling this global challenge and helping governments and businesses navigate the path to recovery. Our professional competencies, a collection of technical knowledge and abilities, combined with our interpersonal behaviours, all underpinned by our ethical behaviour, are extremely relevant at this time. Never was more important our role as Trusted Advisors.

We need to continue to focus in earnest on the work that we do, which will be equally important on the other side of this terrible pandemic: as governments need the mechanisms to provide financial support to public health systems and citizens; as economies start to recover; as businesses need cash flow to rebuild….we have to be there as partners and problem solvers with them.

I have enjoyed following this webinar today, and I am proud that I am a member of a global profession that does so much good in society to make the world a better place.

My thanks again to all the speakers, to all participants from around India and many other countries around the world. I do hope that we will be able to get through this crisis soon.

Covid-19 has shown us that global pandemics do not discriminate and we are all impacted, some obviously worse than others, irrespective of our positions in society.

I also hope that looking forward we will find ourselves in a world that is fairer, kinder and more compassionate.

Keep safe and stay well!!

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

A 2nd 90 minute webinar was hosted by the IAASB to discuss the key revisions to the auditor’s risk identification and assessment procedures, as introduced through the recently published ISA 315 (Revised) Exposure Draft. Listen to IAASB Task Force Chair Fiona Campbell as she goes through specific questions sent from stakeholders about the changes we are proposing.

Listen to IAASB Task Force Chair Fiona Campbell as she explains how International Standard on Auditing 315 (Revised) will improve audit quality through better guidance on identifying and assessing material misstatement risks. This 90 minute webinar contains useful information to help our stakeholders understand the proposed changes to the standard. The IAASB is planning a follow-up webinar in early October 2018 to provide stakeholders with an opportunity to ask questions about the Exposure Draft. Invitations will be sent in September for registration webinar and to submit questions. In the meantime, you have until November 2nd to  provide your comment to the Exposure Draft.

The following slide deck presents an overview of the revised and restructured Code of Ethics.

Narrada pelo técnico do IPSASB, João Carlos Fonseca, esta apresentação fornece uma visão geral do Exposure Draft 63, Benefícios Sociais.

O Exposure Draft aborda a contabilização de benefícios sociais, tais como reforma, desemprego e incapacidade, com o objetivo de melhorar a consistência, transparência e relato de benefícios sociais por entidades do setor público, os quais representam uma grande percentagem dos gastos públicos em muitas jurisdições.

O Exposure Draft 63 define benefícios sociais e propõe requisitos para o reconhecimento e mensuração de esquemas de benefícios sociais. Também propõe requisitos de divulgação que fornece informação adicional para os utilizadores avaliarem o efeito dos benefícios sociais nas finanças públicas no futuro.

Tradução parcialmente baseada na lei portuguesa.

Translation partially based on Portuguese law.

Presentation by Isabelle Tracq-Sengeissen, International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) Agreed-Upon Procedures Working Group and ISA 315 Task Force member, at the FIDEF annual general meeting. In her presentation, Isabelle explained the international standard-setting process, including IAASB activity and due process; encouraged professional accountancy organizations in French-speaking countries to contribute to IAASB activities and respond to public consultations; and updated participants on current IAASB projects.