Audit monitoring of ICAEW audit registered firms
Quality Assurance monitoring
ICAEW’s regulatory role
We have now returned to on-site monitoring visits
Our quality assurance team has now returned to pre-pandemic ways of working, including on-site visits. For firms and practitioners that are in scope for an on-site visit, we find that they provide the best opportunity for high quality interaction between firms and our reviewers. They also enable the visit to be conducted in the most proportionate and effective manner for all those involved.
In order for all visits to run as smoothly as possible, please ensure that key principals and staff at the firm are present during the visit and that all information requested is available. This may require some advanced planning if your firm is now adopting a hybrid working model. It is important that we receive timely responses to our queries whilst on-site, otherwise the process may become protracted and may result in our reviewer needing to return at a later date to complete the visit.
In the case of unforeseen circumstances in the days leading up to your visit, please tell us by emailing qadvisits@icaew.com and we can agree an appropriate solution.
Financial Reporting Council (FRC) oversight
The FRC monitors the audit of Public Interest Entities ((PIEs) a fully listed company, bank, or an insurance provider) and the procedures relating to these engagements.
As the UK Competent Authority, the FRC delegates tasks to ICAEW including audit monitoring of non-PIE audits and non-PIE audit firms. The FRC Professional Oversight team conducts an ongoing review of our performance of these delegated tasks. Every year a small number of our audit monitoring visits are shadowed by inspectors from the Professional Oversight team.
An FRC inspector will join the QAD reviewer(s) at your office, sit in on meetings and will also choose at least one of the audit files QAD selects to review themselves. ICAEW and the Audit Registration Committee retain sole responsibility for your audit monitoring visit, and the FRC does not influence the conclusions or outcome.
If your visit is selected, we aim to give you as much notice as possible but may only have confirmation of the shadowing 1-2 weeks beforehand. We appreciate firms’ co-operation in facilitating these shadowed visits, which normally includes providing more space and an additional laptop for the FRC inspector to access audit files.
If you have any questions about your visit, please contact qadvisits@icaew.com
A message from the FRC about its oversight of ICAEW audit monitoring work
The FRC would like to remind firms that as the UK Competent Authority of statutory audit, the FRC remains responsible for the tasks delegated to Recognised Supervisory Bodies (RSBs) under the Delegation Agreements and Regulation 3(4) of SATCAR. Schedule 2 of SATCAR provides powers for the UK Competent Authority to request information from a statutory auditor for any purpose related to inspecting or investigating statutory audit work.
There is no provision that says that the FRC loses these powers if it has delegated any functions to RSBs. There is no requirement for the FRC to reclaim a task to exercise this power. Therefore, the FRC is entitled to ask audit firms for any information or access to information if it is considered necessary for inspecting or investigating statutory audit work even though the audit monitoring work is carried out by ICAEW.
Audit monitoring reports
Every year our quality assurance team looks back at the results of the last 12 months of audit monitoring reviews, covering the Big 4 to sole practitioners, and identifies areas for improvement and examples of good practice. We recommend you familiarise yourself with our latest report to help you stay up to date with best practice advice and current common issues. |
Our approach to audit monitoring
We conduct monitoring visits to firms registered for audit with ICAEW. As well as our important role of protecting the public interest, we recognise the challenges that firms face and understand you may sometimes need help. We believe we are successful in fulfilling both objectives.
We have an experienced team of reviewers, who are all chartered accountants. As well as keeping up to date with the latest technical developments and interpretations of standards, we provide regular training to all our reviewers to continue to embed our philosophy to be proportionate and focus on the most significant aspects of the audit, and to help to ensure a consistent approach across our team.
Your audit monitoring visit
During your visit, we will review and assess your firm’s procedures, processes and controls to make sure:
- audits comply with professional standards; and
- your firm meets the requirements of the audit regulations.
We use a risk-based approach to selecting the dates for firm visits. This is in line with the Audit Regulation & Directive regime and the requirements of our oversight body, the FRC. There are various factors which determine the risk profile of your firm and therefore your next visit date. These include:
- the size and complexity of the firm;
- its RSB-scope audit clients; and
- previous regulatory history.
You may have your next visit on or just before the six-year anniversary of your previous visit, or we may need to visit more frequently due to your risk profile. We will continue to notify you when we select you for a visit.
Usually, we carry out our audit visits separately from visits for Practice Assurance, DPB (Investment Business) and probate. However, in some cases, it's more practical to cover more than one area.
The monitoring process if your firm carries out PIE audits
Since 17 June 2016, any firm which audits at least one PIE (a fully listed company, bank, or an insurance provider) is monitored by the FRC. The FRC also monitors audits of AIM quoted entities with market capitalisation over €200m (average over 3 years) and Lloyd’s syndicates.
These together with PIEs are called retained audits. Audit Quality Review (AQR) visits will cover the whole firm and overall quality control procedures and review of a sample of PIE/retained audits. The FRC will advise firms when a visit is due to take place.
We will continue to visit your firm if you have PIEs or other retained audits to review all other audit work. We may need to review some aspects of your whole-firm procedures to complete our visits.
The visit process
Our risk-based framework – visit cycles |
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Scope of our visits – summary |
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Assessing whole-firm procedures |
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Review of audit files |
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Concluding and reporting |
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Support for ICAEW audit firms
We offer practical audit support and guidance to ICAEW auditors including the latest regulatory updates in Audit News, reports and webinars to help your firm prepare your next audit monitoring visit.