.
This publication, with its counterpart on fraud,
presents recommendations to strengthen the financial reporting
ecosystem. This is especially topical after recent corporate failures,
fraud cases and companies getting under pressure due to the ongoing
COVID-19 pandemic. We thus re-examine the role of key parties to make
the system more resilient: those within the company, external auditors,
standard setters, legislators and public oversight authorities.
The system should become better at dealing with and communicating on
issues with a company’s ability to continue as a ‘going concern’. Simply
put, if it will remain in business for the next 12 months. With this
aim, we propose the following recommendations:
- broaden companies’ work effort
- mandate disclosure on companies’ risk management systems on going concern and expand the auditor’s involvement
- mandate going concern disclosure even if no uncertainties
- change in mindset, transparency and communication
- mandate an audit committee in each public interest entity
- clarify and harmonise the period for going concern assessment
- broaden auditors’ area of consideration and work effort
- make early warning mechanisms for auditors effective
We also invite relevant parties to explore whether and, if so, how
assessing companies’ longer-term viability and resilience, and
interconnecting of financial and non-financial information could
contribute to this aim.
We call for a joint effort of key parties to strengthen the
ecosystem. To this end, we ask you to send your thoughts and opinions on
our recommendations to julia@accountancyeurope.eu by 30 April 2021.
Full paper