Commencement of Requirements Under the Accountants (Amendment) Act from 1 July 2023

With effect from 1 July 2023, ACRA will be implementing the requirements under the Accountants (Amendments) Act which was passed by Parliament in October last year. 

These amendments seek to enhance ACRA’s audit regulatory regime and ensure that high audit quality standards are upheld by public accounting entities (PAEs) and public accountants (PAs). 

The key new requirements are as follows: 

a. Allow ACRA to conduct statutory Quality Control inspections on PAEs and to mandate remediation of lapses or to impose sanctions on PAEs for non-compliances.

b. Specify ACRA’s powers to conduct Anti-Money Laundering / Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) inspections on PAEs / PAs and to impose sanctions if they fail to comply with these requirements.

c. Introduce a tiered assessment framework (Satisfactory, Satisfactory but with Findings, Partially Satisfactory and Not Satisfactory) for inspections conducted on individual PAs’ audit work under the Practice Monitoring Programme and Quality Control inspections.

d. Allow ACRA to compel a PA who has obtained a “Not Satisfactory” inspection outcome under the Practice Monitoring Programme to disclose the PA’s audit inspection findings to the audited entity.

Please refer to this for more information.