The AICPA also enforces a code of professional conduct for its members, which

governs how accountants perform their duties. Those duties include performing
audits and attestation services. The Auditing Standards Board (ASB) sets audit and
attestation standards. This organization is a senior committee within the AICPA.
When the company involved is publicly traded, the PCAOB and the SEC have oversight.
As a result, auditing standards created by the ASB are adopted by the PCAOB
and approved by the SEC. If you look through the standards listed on the PCAOB
website, you’ll see a list of auditing standards from the ASB.
Establishing and adhering to accounting standards ensures that financial reports
have accurate information so that investors and others can make well-informed
decisions. As an accountant, you’re responsible for serving at least two masters:
the organization that hires you to produce the financial reports and investors who
use that information to make investment decisions. Accounting standards help to
ensure that everyone is making decisions by using timely and accurate financial
information.
You don’t have to be a CPA or a member of the AICPA to perform your job ethically,
or to get work as an accountant. However, membership in the AICPA has many
benefits, including automatic accounting standards updates, research tools, and
educational resources.
ASB audit and attestation standards
The ASB is a senior technical committee of the AICPA. The ASB issues the standards
and procedures that accountants must follow when conducting attestation
and audit services for nonpublic companies. As explained in the prior section, the
ASB is also involved with accounting work on publicly traded companies.
The ASB also sets quality control standards to use when conducting peer reviews,
which occur when one CPA firm evaluates the operations of another CPA firm.
Most ASB members work for public accounting firms (such as KPMG LLP), are
university professors or governmental accountants, or practice in some other
accounting field.
Curious about these mysterious ASB standards? They’re called Statements on Auditing
Standards (SAS). Here are just a couple of the standards, so you have some idea
of what they cover:
SAS No. 1 Section 410 establishes that the auditor must state whether the »»