Audit Quality Forum: Fundamentals

Find out more about the AQF's Fundamentals series and download the prospectus and all six publications.

About

The Fundamentals series broadened the focus of the Audit Quality Forum, to examine the relationships between shareholders, boards, auditors, regulators and other shareholders in the audit.

Audit Quality Prospectus

Detailing the AQF's agenda and the publications which followed in the Fundamentals series.

Third parties

How does the extent of disclosure of third-party information and advice to the board impact on audit quality?

Advice given to boards and information held by third-party advisers, trading partners and others is relevant to the content and reliability of financial statements. What are the implications for the work of auditors, and audit quality and transparency?

Auditor reporting

Is current auditor reporting, in particular the audit report, helpful to shareholders?

Auditor reporting considers the information that auditors communicate and how this reflects audit purpose. It also looks at the expectations of shareholders and the need to raise confidence in the independent audit.

Making global auditing standards local

In practice how can auditing standards have global reach yet deal with local challenges?

This paper explores the qualities of auditing standards that produce high-quality audits and the challenges of implementing global auditing standards in the UK.

Principles-based auditing standards

What are 'principles-based' or 'objectives-orientated' auditing standards?

This paper explores the perceptions of the nature of such standards. How do they differ in practice from 'rules-based' standards?

Audit purpose

What is the purpose of an audit?

This paper tries to answer this question in the context of the interests of shareholders who appoint and monitor boards and, ultimately, control the companies they own.

Working papers

Four papers that provided the framework for the Audit purpose published paper.

Agency theory and the role of audit

Audits serve a fundamental purpose in promoting confidence and reinforcing trust in financial information.

The principal-agent relationship, as depicted in agency theory, is important in understanding how the audit has developed.