Broker-Dealer Audits Still Stymied by Revenue, Controls Issues

Accounting firms continue to struggle with basic aspects of audits and reviews of their broker-dealer clients, including testing internal controls and validating revenue, the US audit regulator said Friday.

Compliance rates improved slightly among the audits and examinations that regulators inspected in 2021, but the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board found problems with the work completed by 78% of the firms whose work they reviewed last year, according its annual report on broker-dealer audits and other reviews.

• Inspectors noted problems with 49% of the individual audits reviewed in 2021, an improvement from the 61% identified the prior year ...