Chartered Accountants ANZ welcomes ‘Trends in Audit Quality’, the FMA’s Audit Quality Monitoring Report for 1 July 2023 to 30 June 2024, that provides findings from reviews of the systems, policies and procedures of registered audit firms and licensed auditors in New Zealand.

“According to the CA ANZ 2024 Investor Confidence Survey, auditors are the number one most trusted group for maintaining confidence and trust in businesses, capital markets, and public institutions. The FMA's ongoing reporting and recommendations are an important contributor to ensuring this continues,” said CA ANZ Reporting and Assurance Leader Amir Ghandar FCA.

“This report provides rich insights on FMA’s findings and views, which the audit profession will use for improvement and analysis, and to understand where to focus efforts in continuing to raise the bar.”

“It’s pleasing to see that this report highlights that audit quality in New Zealand ‘remains strong’ showing the significant investment into audit quality that firms, and the profession continue to make.”

“The FMA has said it is satisfied firms have implemented the new quality management standards, and these findings should give stakeholders confidence that audit quality in New Zealand has a solid systemic underpinning.”

“However, auditors must remain vigilant and consistently strive for improvement, with the FMA's findings also highlighting certain inconsistencies in audit execution.”

“We implore all auditors to read the FMA’s report and in particular think about how the focus areas come into play in audit engagements and at a firm wide level.”

“This includes focusing on accounting estimates, revenue recognition and other detailed focus areas highlighted in addition to the general principles outlined in the FMA’s report.”