The regulatory environment and financial reporting

You are the training manager for TWP, a large national professional services firm that undertakes financial statement audits for large companies but has also recently expanded its provision of forensic accounting services. One of your key tasks is to prepare regular internal newsletter to keep staff updated on the latest news, alerting staff of changes and developments that may impact their work, and provide enough information for staff to:

• understand the nature of the news/changes/developments and its potential impact;
• access further information on the news/changes/developments if they wish to (including website links where appropriate).

with to auditing issues and to forensic accounting issues)that identifies and summarises changes, developments, and news for the observation period from15 July2020 to 15 July 2021,inclusive.

Detailed guidelines for completing this task:

1. Identification of news/changes/developments

You will need to identify and consider a range of news items/developments/changes such as:

• technical issues: for example the issue of new auditing standards, amendments to auditing standards, updates on AUASB or IAASB projects in progress, advances in the technology used in forensic accounting. Any pronouncements which became effective outside of the observation period may be includednews in relation to that pronouncement is published within the observation period.
• regulation and monitoring of auditing and forensic accounting: for example ASIC reviews on the quality of auditing.
• political influences or other potential developments. 'Political' does not only mean action from politicians it would also include lobbying/actions by other groups to promote their own interests. For example, there may be articles about companies, audit firms, or other particular interest groups saying that if certain auditing standards or expectations on auditors are introduced this will disadvantage them or have a negative impact.

The page restriction on the newsletter means that you need to use judgment about what to include and how much information to include. It is not intended that you provide complete details of news/changes/developments although you may consider that more detail is needed for particular issues. Given the target audience, it would be assumed that readers have a working knowledge of common terms and so abbreviations such as AUASB, IAASB may be used.

2. Potential sources

Given the scope of the potential influences on auditing and forensic accounting, you will need to research a range of Australian and international sources. Below is a list of sources that may be of interest. Note that this list is not exhaustive, students should search for sources outside of these. Students should not rely on any one type of source, but a range of sources from each category, i.e. do not just look at websites, also check journals, newspapers, etc. Examples of possible information sources include:

(a) Websites such as those of:

• Auditing and Assurance Standards Board
• Financial Reporting Council
• Australian Securities and Investment Commission
• Australian Securities Exchange
• International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board
• Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand, especially the forensic accounting specialisation pages
• CPA Australia
• Websites of large accounting firms and other firms offering forensic accounting services

(b) Professional publications:

• In the Black (CPA)
• Acuity (CAANZ)
• Accounting Futures Magazine (CAANZ & ACCA)

(c) Newspapers/journals