After a decade of regulating the audit of public companies in the United States, only one thing is certain about the quality of audits: that even today, nobody is quite sure how good audits actually are.
The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, formed under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, continues to adjust its approach to regulating the audit profession, especially the method by which it inspects audits to determine where problems exist that auditors need to fix. That has sent auditors on an odyssey—especially in the last five years—to determine what will satisfy regulators and the public. How can auditors deliver a tough but fair audit at a cost that clients are willing to pay?
