Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) - Assessing Material Impact
Per Auditing Standard 5 (AS5), the auditor must evaluate the severity of each control deficiency to determine whether the deficiencies, individually or in combination, are material weaknesses. The key question to ask is…what parameters should be considered when determining materiality?
In planning and performing the audit, the auditor is not required to search for deficiencies that, individually or in combination, are less severe than a material weakness. There are several definitions of materiality utilized in the profession that are promulgated by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), Committee of Sponsoring Organizations (COSO) and others.
This course covers several aspects about the concepts of material weakness and significant deficiency. We evaluate recent cases of material weakness disclosures and updates from the PCAOB.
Note: Information within this course comes from readily available public domain documents and is utilized by the trainer as a supplement for relaying the course content.
Field of Study: Auditing
Lynn Fountain has over 45 years of experience spanning public accounting, corporate accounting and consulting. 24 years of her experience has been working in the areas of internal and external auditing. She is a subject matter expert in multiple fields including internal audit, ethics, fraud evaluations, Sarbanes-Oxley, enterprise risk management, governance, financial management and compliance. Ms. Fountain has held two Chief Audit Executive positions for international companies. In 2011, as the Chief Audit Executive for an international construction/ engineering firm, she was involved in the active investigation of a joint venture fraud. The investigation included work with the FBI and ultimately led to indictment of the perpetrators and recovery of $13M. Ms. Fountain is currently engaged in her own training and consulting business and is a regular trainer for the AICPA. Ms. Fountain is the author of three separate technical books. “Raise the Red Flag – The Internal Auditors Guide to Fraud Evaluations” was published by the Institute of Internal Auditors Research Foundation. -“Leading The Internal Audit Function” and -“Ethics and The Internal Auditor Political Dilemma” were published by Taylor & Francis In addition Ms. Fountain was a contributing author to the certification program exam for the National Association of Accountants. She also has certificate programs on various on-line platforms. Ms. Fountain has performed as an adjunct instructor for the School of Business for Grantham University and developed the first internal audit curriculum for the School of Business at the University of Kansas. Ms. Fountain obtained her BSBA from Pittsburg State University and her MBA from Washburn University in Kansas. She has her CGMA, CRMA credentials and CPA certificate (non-active).
