This is the fourth year that Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CA ANZ) has partnered with the University of Melbourne and the University of Queensland to examine the reporting of key audit matters (KAMs) in Australia. Building on our three previous publications into 2023 reporting, 2022 reporting and 2021 reporting, this research examines the frequency and nature of the reporting of KAMs by auditors of financial reports for ASX listed companies that issued financial statements in 2024 (balance dates between 31 December 2023 and 30 September 2024).

We exclude companies in the Financials industry and Real Estate industry. To enable comparison of KAMs across time we only examine companies that existed from 2021 to 2024. This year, for the first time, we analyse mining companies separately. The final sample is 965 companies, comprising 529 in the main sample and 436 mining companies.

Some of the key findings identified are as follows:

• Auditors are most frequently flagging higher risk areas such as asset impairment and revenue recognition in their reported ‘key audit matters’ – the audit areas on which they are spending the most time on Australian companies.
• Global and domestic economic uncertainty, interest rate movements, and increasingly complex customer contracts are among the reasons auditors are pointing to asset impairment and revenue as higher risk ‘key audit matters’.
• Companies across most sectors tend to have 1–2 key audit matters of a higher risk, which consume the most time from audit teams, with companies in the utilities and consumer staples sectors on average having the largest number of different key audit matters.
• Despite many retailers operating online there were few key audit matters reported by consumer staples and consumer discretionary companies’ auditors relating to IT systems and controls.