AICPA approves revised attestation standards

May 16, 2024

The American Institute of CPAs' Auditing Standards Board voted to approve a set of revisions to the rules for attestation engagements to align them with the AICPA's quality management standards.

The biggest change in SSAE No. 23, the Statement on Standards for Attestation Engagements No. 23, "Amendments to the Attestation Standards for Consistency With the Issuance of AICPA Standards on Quality Management," involves the deletion of the defined term "other practitioner" and replacing it with two new terms, "participating practitioner" and "referred-to practitioner." These two terms refer, respectively, to other practitioners who are part of the engagement team and those who are not.

The performance and reporting requirements were also revised to differentiate between the types of "other practitioners."

The standards amended by SSAE 23 include:

SSAE No. 18, Attestation Standards: Clarification and Recodification;
SSAE No. 19, Agreed-Upon Procedures Engagements;
SSAE No. 21, Direct Examination Engagements; and,
SSAE No. 22, Review Engagements.
SSAE No. 23 and the other quality management standards take effect for engagements starting on or after Dec. 15, 2025.

[Accounting Today]