You are employed by a regional accounting firm that is located in a medium-sized town in southern Ontario. A new ramp has been built from the highway close to the town, which is bringing new businesses into the community. In fact, there are several public companies that will be building manufacturing sites within a few miles of the edge of town. A large retail group is also looking at building a shopping mall at the edge of the industrial sector. The two partners of the office are excited, as they have been approached to provide tax, accounting, and audit work for some of these businesses. In particular, they are excited about the prospect of doing audit work for public companies.

Required: Describe five actions using the elements of quality control that the accounting firm should undertake before doing audit work for public companies and explain how each action helps to ensure that the firm conducts its audits of a sufficiently high quality.