Overview of the new auditor’s audit report under the ISA

The auditor’s report is the final output of the audit process. Many users of the financial statements and stakeholders have called to have a more informative and relevant auditor’s report. There has been increasing criticism over standardised wording and a request for audit reports to be more transparent and tailored to individual clients.

These queries have been taken into account by the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) of the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) and a revised set of auditing standards on auditors’ reports were issued in 2015. These are effective for companies with financial years ending on or after 15 December 2016.

It is granted that the national laws and requirements should never be by-passed if they are more restrictive than the International Standards on Auditing (ISAs) / European (EU) Directive. Each European country may add local requirements during the transposition of the Directive. The scope of these new standards is set out in section 1 below. 
This factsheet aims at explaining the main impacts of the changes decided by the IFAC, and helping the anticipation of their application, that impacts both the management and those charged with governance and us as auditors.

SUMMARY

I.   Main changes in the new auditor’s report
 II.  Focus on Key Audit Matters
 III. What does a new auditor’s report look like?
 IV. Impacts on management and those charged with governance
V.  Additional requirements for European countries