Group Audits – ISA 600

What the Project Aims to Achieve

The project to revise ISA 600, Special Considerations—Audits of Group Financial Statements (Including the Work of Component Auditors) aimed to: 

• Clarify the scope of the standard, including explaining whether ISA 600 (Revised) applies to shared service centers, non-controlled entities and entities with branches or division;
• Clarify the interaction of ISA 600 (Revised) with other ISAs, including ISA 220 (Revised), ISA 315 (Revised 2019) and ISA 330; 
• Clarify how to address restrictions on access to people and information in a group audit, including restrictions on access to component management, those charged with governance of the component, component auditors, or information at the components;
• Clarify how the concepts of materiality and aggregation risk apply in a group audit;
• Strengthen the auditor’s approach to planning and performance of a group audit by closer aligning the standard to the principles in ISA 315 (Revised 2019); 
• Enhance the documentation requirements by clarifying what the group auditor may need to document in different situations;
• Emphasize the importance of professional skepticism in a group audit; and
• Reinforcing the need for robust communication and interactions during the audit.

The IAASB was mindful that the standard needs to be scalable and adaptable to a variety of circumstances. 

Project Stages