Nothing worse than the COVID-19 pandemic that has ripped economies into pieces over the past one-odd year, but US CPAs remained intact in their audit quality even through this cold storm. Certified Public Accountants as credential practitioners adapted to new and innovative ways to deliver qualitative financial statements and reports amidst this challenging environment. Not just adapting to new ways, US CPAs pushed forward to building new standards to sustain quality checks while preparing financial statements, which included the usage of audit analytics and automation. Let us look into some of those 5 critical hurdles modern CPAs face in the post-pandemic era.
CPAs need a 360-degree View
Before designing risk-based audit procedures, Certified Public Accountants need to have a comprehensive understanding of the risks of the company to deliver efficient services by understanding the client’s internal control, risks related to IT use, risks related to material misstatement. So how do we enhance CPAs’ professional skepticism and guidance to ensure that the risk assessment standards match the evolving business environment? One of the ways to do that is to improve scalability with respect to the entity and its environment more than its size.
Clear Communication saves CPA’s Reputation
Companies hire new accountants or auditors like CPAs. In this process, CPAs are barely introduced to the new or updated reporting standards or procedures and this is one of the reasons that bring down the communicative value of the US CPAs. By adapting to new reporting standards, the new US CPAs would be able to place edging opinions on the preparation of the financial reports, a careful reading of the annual reports of the company, and produce independent reports while adhering to the ethical framework in pointing out inconsistencies and material misstatements. The financial report is key to winning clientele trust! To gear hands-on experience in turbo financial reporting during crises and risks, accounting professionals can take up CPA classes.
CPA’s Job is not Remote
Auditing is a profession that requires in-person contact rather than remote relations. But with the onset of the pandemic, millions of professionals with US CPA eligibility were forced by companies to conduct remote audits with the clients rather than through social meetings. Whether auditing procedures were duly followed by CPAs in compliance with pandemic norms or used electronic system or any other traditional method, the auditing process needs understanding and testing to ensure that process is working to provide audit evidence to judge as to the basic principles like risk assessment, testing, and documentation required in-person experience to form informed conclusions.
CPAs need Single Audit Forte
Many organizations, entities, and companies received pandemic aid during the pandemic and as a result, created ample opportunities for CPAs and audit and taxation firms. Since Single Audits were specialized engagements, most audit practitioners or companies did not have this experience, hence they tend to produce low-quality audits. So one of the ways to tide this situation over is to get educated through the information available on websites, preferably government sources on Single Audits, or take up a CPA Review course from the best CPA training institutes in India. Due to the pandemic, another challenge for many audit agencies along with CPAs is the workload compression perspective.
CPAs engineer Quality Management
Documentation of the risk management process requires time and resources, but many companies eliminated the burdensome process due to the loss of market share and customers during the height of the pandemic. This turned a dark cloud on the head as they were bound to conduct audits below-set standards and under limited time zones which eventually brought down the quality. On the other hand, the audit firms’ hands were tied from conducting a firm-wide assessment to identify quality risks and build a holistic framework that would allow annual evaluation of quality management systems.
Miles Education is a premiere skilling & training institute for finance & accounting professionals to earn US CPA/CMA credentials. The focus for Miles Education has always been to up-skill students and professionals to help them be future-ready and enable their career progression through the US CPA/CMA qualification Committed to achieving this goal, today, Miles is India’s largest and #1 CPA review course! It has been instrumental in building the CPA/CMA ecosystem in India holding offices in 20+ cities and partnerships with 170+ MNCs, including all of the Big 4s. Miles Education provides student/professional-centric services while keeping concept-based learning at its core which has helped it climb to the top ranks when it comes to the US CPA/CMA certification in India.
