Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CA ANZ) conducts quality and practice reviews to ensure its members comply with the mandatory pronouncements issued by the APES Board and with other mandatory standards set by CA ANZ. Its Quality and Practice Review Program aims to maintain a consistently high standard of quality and service for practices’ clients.

CA ANZ members called for a quality and practice review to undertake the following process:

• A reviewer is assigned to visit the member’s practice.
• The reviewer examines the practice’s APES 320, ASQM1 and APES 325 manuals and a selection of client engagement files.
• The reviewer discusses their findings, including any issues that need resolving, and sends a summary to the relevant accounting body.
• Members receive a letter that provides a summary of the review and any actions to be taken.

Note: Some members are eligible for self-assessment reviews if they are not registered company auditors, liquidators or SMSF auditors.

This standard requires public practices to establish and maintain a System of Quality Management for non-assurance services. This should give the accounting body assurance that the firm and its personnel are complying with professional standards, ethical requirements, and other applicable legal and regulatory requirements.

The standard requires all firms engaging in audit and assurance services to design, implement and operate robust quality management systems and procedures.

This standard specifies the mandatory obligations of a firm to maintain a risk management framework to identify, assess, and manage organisational risks. It documents the firm’s Risk Management Framework and how it communicates risk management policies and procedures to its personnel.

Instead of doing it all yourself, we can do it for you and free up time you can use to do chargeable work. Our solutions include...

• Providing expert independent advice to help you improve areas of your accounting public practice, before it is scrutinised in a quality review
• Preparing compliant APES 320, ASQM1 and APES 325 manuals
• Significantly increase your chances of being a compliant practice - Ensuring your quality control system meets the mandatory standards
• Eliminating the need for a full-time or part-time employee to oversee your practice’s quality control system

Craig Allen is a former quality assurance reviewer for CPA Australia and has helped more than 500 practices in Australia as a quality assurance consultant or quality assurance reviewer. Craig has a unique perspective, having also been in public practice for more than 30 years. Talk to Craig to find out how he can help your accounting practice get ready for a quality review and attain best-practice standards.