Annual Update for Accountants and Auditors: 2020

Chapter 8Other Standards-Setting Activities Affecting Audit and Attestation Engagements

Learning objectives

• Recognize the key elements of several recently issued exposure drafts that may lead to revised or amended Statements on Auditing Standards (SASs).
• Identify key changes contained in SSAE No. 19, Agreed-Upon Procedures Engagements, that affect the requirements related to agreed-upon procedures engagements.
• Interpret how SSAE No. 20, Amendments to the Description the Concept of Materiality, changes the auditor’s consideration of materiality in an attestation engagement.
• Recognize key proposed changes to attestation standards for examination and review engagements currently under consideration by the Auditing Standards Board.

This chapter highlights the key provisions contained in several recently issued exposure drafts of new SASs and it highlights key provisions in two recently issued SSAEs.

Exposure drafts of proposed SASs

During 2019, the AICPA Auditing Standards Board (ASB) issued two exposure drafts of proposed Statements on Auditing Standards (SASs). These exposure drafts address the following:

• Audit evidence
• Auditing accounting estimates and related disclosures

An overview of these proposed new SASs follows.

Proposed SAS on audit evidence (AU-C section 500)

The AICPA ASB issued an exposure draft in June 2019 of a proposed SAS that would supersede AU-C section 500, Audit Evidence, and amend various other sections in the professional standards. The comment period ...