Audit Report Release
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) released its anticipated report on “Assessing the Quality of Employee Benefit Plan Audits” on May 28. For the 2011 filing year, 81,162 audit reports on employee benefit plans (EBP) were submitted to the EBSA by 7,330 different CPA firms. To study the quality of those reports, the EBSA reviewed a statistically valid sample of 400 plan audits performed by 232 firms.  -read more-

PROC Summit Highlights
NASBA and the Compliance Assurance Committee recently hosted the 2015 PROC Summit on July 10, in Nashville, Tennessee.  This year’s event was the most-attended PROC Summit to date with over 80 attendees representing at least 30 states. Videos of all the speaker presentations are available for viewing on the NASBA YouTube channel.  -read more-

Proposed Changes to CPE Standards

On May 19, 2015, NASBA and the AICPA issued proposed revisions to the Statement on Standards for Continuing Professional Education (CPE) Programs (Standards). The approach to change to the Standards has been additive.  The current, traditional instructional delivery methods remain.  However, new instructional delivery methods – nano-learning and blended learning – have been included. -read more-

ERG - Component 8: Recording and Publicly Reporting Decisions and Sanctions
The Enforcement Resource Guide (ERG) divides the enforcement process into nine basic components. In this newsletter, we will focus on Component 8:  Recording and Publicly Reporting Decisions and Sanctions.  The Accountancy Licensee Database (ALD) is the central repository of current licensee and firm records and information.  -read more-

A Valuable Resource for Disciplinary Data
The Enforcement Resources Committee continues to work with NASBA to gather information from federal and other agencies regarding disciplinary or enforcement matters involving CPAs or CPA firms that might be of interest to Boards. NASBA continuously gathers disciplinary information from the SEC A&A Reports and Litigation Releases, IRS Bulletins, PCAOB, and AICPA web sites and publications and provides the information to the Boards in the Quarterly Enforcement Report.  -read more-

Have You Checked Out the Guide Lately? 
Most Boards are familiar with the Enforcement Resources Guide which is a password protected document available on the Enforcement Tools web page of NASBA.org to Executive Directors and approved Board staff.  However, you may not be aware that the Guide is an evergreen document which continues to be modified and updated to reflect the current enforcement culture of boards of accountancy.  -read more-

ALD Updates
The Accountancy Licensee Database (ALD) and CPAverify remain robust with 50 Boards of Accountancy participating on each. Three of the remaining five boards are working on their implementations. Many Boards are working proactively on re-building their ALD feeds from their new or upgraded systems while still operating on the existing systems.  -read more-