Organization of external quality control of audit activities

The main regulatory legal acts defining general approaches to the organization of the system of external quality control of the work of audit organizations and individual auditors include: first of all, the Federal Law of 30.12.08 No. 307-FZ

"On the audit activity" and Federal rules (standards) of audit activity. There are also various methodological recommendations and letters of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, which describe individual issues of external quality control in more detail.

Today, the quality of work of audit organizations and individual auditors can be checked:

• -    On the part of state authorities

• -    On the part of self-regulating organizations of auditors in relation to their members.

The first type of control exists in Russia for a long time without any fundamentally new solutions. The second type of control has appeared in the country only recently and does not yet have a unified approach.

The main stages of quality control organization are:

• 1.    The first stage - creation within SRO of auditors of department of quality assurance of work of the auditor organisations and individual auditors. Constant functioning of such departments should become a subject of supervision on the part of the state with the right of exclusion from the register of SRO auditors of all audit organizations which does not carry out requirements of quality control departments SRO.

• 2.    The second stage is to determine the forms of external control that will be used by self-regulating organizations of auditors in the process of quality control of audit organizations and individual auditors.

The third stage of the organization of quality control of auditors' organizations' work is to determine the time frame and frequency of audits. When organizing quality control of auditors' work SRO auditors determines the date of the beginning of the audit. They also need to notify the audited person about it.

It is expedient to present and group all received information by sections. The process of collecting information about the audited organization or individual auditor includes the following sections:

• 1.    The first section should include general information related to the name of the organization, actual and legal address, codes assigned, data of branches and representative offices, bank accounts and others. When collecting such information, it is possible to use the data already available to SROs, and to request the missing information from the management of the audit organization.

• 2.    The second section includes information on the organizational and legal form and management of the organization. The executive body may be either the head of the organization, or the head or collegial executive body.

• 4.    The fourth section contains information on the composition of the audit organization. Quality controllers should receive information on the number of auditors employed by the organizations and the number of auditors engaged under cooperation agreements.

• 5.    The fifth section is the information on membership in SRO of auditors. First of all, it is necessary to establish two dates - membership in a selfregulating organization and the last external audit of the auditors' activity quality.

• 6.    The final section of the data on the audited company may contain information that cannot be directly attributed to the general information, but which is necessary for the overall understanding of the auditors' activities.

The third section may contain information on the main indicators and types of activities carried out by the audit organization.

All the issues considered when collecting general information about the audit firm or individual auditor can be combined in a review report, which should be signed by the head of the audited company. This signature will indicate that the information collected by the auditors is reliable, up to date and can be used in the performance of quality control activities.