Top Accounting and Auditing Issues (2022)

This seven CPE hour course reviews top accounting issues: accounting, auditing, and COVID-19, new COVID-19 frauds and scams, and accounting and financial reporting considerations related to COVID-19 and the economic downturn. The course focuses on the challenges accountants and auditors face due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It reviews existing standards in accounting and auditing, and auditing standards and changes made to be implemented for 2021 and later. It examines how criminals are trying to take advantage of the virus to line their pockets with ill-gotten gains and outlines information technology (IT) and other frauds as well as cybersecurity in a COVID-19 environment. It also provides an up-to-date overview of some of the most common accounting and financial reporting matters in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic downturn. It focuses on critical accounting technical areas that have been impacted as well as cases where substantial judgment and professional skepticism are necessary to assess the facts and ensure that the operative standards are applied.

This seven CPE hour course reviews top accounting issues: going concern: SAS No. 132, accounting and auditing under the new leasing standard, how to audit in a COVID-19 environment, and major audit issues: SAS 141, 142, and 143. The course discusses Statement on Auditing Standards (SAS) No. 132, The Auditor’s Consideration of an Entity’s Ability to Continue as a Going Concern, from the AICPA’s Audit Standards Board (ASB). SAS No. 132 includes many significant changes in authoritative professional standards concerning going concern issues. It represents changes to the Generally Accepted Auditing Standards (GAAS) concerning “going concern” reporting for entities. It provides external auditors with practical and insightful perspectives on how to audit transactions under the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s (FASB) new leasing standard, Accounting Standards Codification (ASC) Topic 842, Leases. It discusses the new accounting and financial reporting requirements and how to substantively and analytically test them in accordance with Professional Standards. It also provides external auditors with both practical and insightful perspectives on how to navigate an audit engagement of a private company during the global pandemic. It reviews recent issues from the AICPA’s Auditing Standards Board (ASB) for private entities, including implementation issues with new effective dates. New and revised audit standards, attestation standards, and other recent pronouncements about auditing will be discussed. Also, the revised auditing standards resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic will be examined for current application.