The voice of your professional accountancy organization (PAO) matters.

The accountancy profession is most successful and sustainable with the support of healthy national and regional professional accountancy organizations (PAOs) that have robust, effective relationships with their national and regional stakeholders, including government and regulators.

The success of any PAO relies in large part on its ability to effectively communicate, and demonstrate, its relevance to society. This begins early in a PAO’s development with promotion of:

Developed in conjunction with CPA Canada, this guide aims to help professional accountants in practice, especially those operating in small- and medium-sized practices (SMPs), in conducting review engagements in compliance with International Standard on Review Engagements (ISRE) 2400 (Revised), Engagements to Review Historical Financial Statements. 

This guidance was written for all organizations, regardless of their size or structure, private or public, to support the accountancy profession’s facilitation of sustainable organizations, financial markets, and economies by providing guiding principles to manage the complexities of performing a robust project and investment appraisal. Greater rigor in the appraisal and decision process can be achieved by using the principles as a benchmark against which to assess an organization’s current practice.

A strong and well-governed professional accountancy organization (PAO) produces and sustains a strong accountancy profession that is able to serve the public interest and contribute to economic stability and growth. A successful PAO gains much of its strength from the sense of identity, benefits, and rights that members derive from membership; and from the contributions that individual members and firms make to the PAO in recognition of its public interest perspective.

This third edition of the guide features enhancements to the two sample manuals, as well as other refinements for clarity and consistency with International Standard on Quality Control (ISQC) 1. The guide contains the requirements set out in ISQC 1 in addition to implementation guidance, including discussion material and an integrated case study that can be used as the basis for education and training.

The PAO Strategy Planning Toolkit directly supports our Strategy and Member Value Proposition helps PAOs succeed in delivering on their mandates, strengthening governance, and building relevance. Whether your PAO is navigating
regulatory reform, digital transformation, or evolving public expectations, a clear and actionable strategy is essential.

This publication is relevant to all professional accountants, whether in business or in public practice, and sustainability assurance practitioners (SAPs). It provides answers to common questions on:

This publication highlights key aspects of the IESSA that illustrate its proportionality, while the IESSA also provides a robust global ethics and independence baseline for sustainability assurance engagements (SAEs). The proportionality of the IESSA enables it to support the performance of SAEs for entities of all sizes, thereby underpinning public trust in those engagements.

The publication is especially geared towards facilitating the implementation of the IESSA by SAPs that are small and medium practices (SMPs).

This Frequently Asked Questions document addresses the applicability of ISSA 5000, ISAE 3000 (Revised), and ISAE 3410 for sustainability assurance engagement after the effective date of ISSA 5000 (December 2026). It is intended to assist with adoption and consistent implementation of ISSA 5000.

These extracts of the ISSA 5000 feature the material that is relevant to limited assurance and reasonable assurance engagements. They were prepared in response to requests from stakeholders to be able to separately view the material.