Accountant's Guide to Peer and Quality Review

Inferior quality service threatens the accounting profession's existence. To reduce instances of substandard service, the profession requires firms to have a system of quality control, to annually inspect that system, and to undergo a comprehensive triennial external review. This book shows firms how to develop a quality control system, prepare for the review, and earn an unqualified report. In addition, it tackles the problem of substandard service head-on.

The author examines the roots of review, substandard service, and discusses the undiscussable. Next he reviews the pluses and minuses of the practice-monitoring programs and the importance of selecting the firm's reviewer. Quality control's nine functional areas are explained in depth and the ten steps to a successful review are also described in detail. He describes what happens on a review and offers practical advice about the problems to avoid. The concluding chapter offers over twenty recommendations that would return the accounting business back to the accounting profession. This book is for every firm, every practicing CPA, and the profession's leaders as well as those interested in improving the integrity of the financial reporting system. It also is important for students planning to enter public accounting.

R. K. McCABE is Professor of Accounting at California State University, Fullerton. He has spent much of his career in public accounting and and has served as a peer reviewer for the AICPA, a state society, and on a state society quality review board. He is a widely published author of articles in such journals as the Journal of Accountancy and The CPA Journal.