My number one goal as EY Global Vice Chair of Assurance is to continue to improve audit quality. I am not willing to compromise on quality, and I believe that “just good enough” is not good enough.
High-quality audits improve stakeholder trust in businesses. This, in turn, drives investment and economic growth, and generates long-term value for society overall.
The delivery of high-quality audits has become even more important as the health and financial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have affected economies across the globe. It is vital in uncertain times for companies, investors and the wider public to have confidence in the quality of the audits that support the capital markets.
In this challenging period, EY teams have continued to deliver high-quality audits, helping to serve the public interest and strengthen trust and confidence. Great progress has been made through the EY SAQ program, which has contributed to enhancements in the EY audit execution.
SAQ is the globally consistent EY approach to high-quality audits. It focuses on key initiatives across six pillars.
There have been many achievements as a result of SAQ, and these are discussed in full in the EY Global Audit Quality Report 2021 (pdf). The report examines four themes that summarize my priorities – talent, data, value and trust – and lead to higher quality.
Value and trust speak to the “why” of an audit, while talent and data speak to the “how.” I am a firm believer that EY teams can make further progress on quality by continuing to attract and develop talented individuals, demonstrating the value and trust that auditors bring, and adopting data and emerging technology in the audit.
A high-quality audit adds value across a company’s operations and provides trust to a range of stakeholders, including governments, regulators, standard-setters, investors, company management teams and boards and audit committees.
Technology and talent
SAQ has embraced many new advances in technology, including the EY Digital Audit, the EY Digital Global Audit Methodology (GAM), the EY Canvas Client Portal, the EY Blockchain Analyzer and AI-based EY Document Intelligence.
The EY Digital Audit has set the standard for the data-driven approach to an audit. Fundamental to this is the EY Canvas global online audit platform, which was used on more than 145,000 engagements in 2020, and now connects 120,000 EY people to more than 350,000 company users through the EY Canvas Client Portal. Meanwhile, the EY Helix anaytics platform analyzes more than 600 billion lines of financial data each year and was used on 57,000 engagements in 2020.