September 2011

CFO.com Quotes Waggoner in "What Were the Auditors Thinking?"

Joan Waggoner, Partner in Charge of Quality Assurance for Blackman Kallick, was quoted by CFO.com in "What Were the Auditors Thinking?" on September 16, 2011. The article covers last week's Public Company Accounting Oversight Board roundtable. Joan was an invited participant in this roundtable discussion. 

Auditors have long expressed anxiety about making subjective statements in public -- statements that could be held against them in court. Thus, they have favored making the sparest statements possible about their clients’ financial processes. Joan Waggoner, a partner in charge of quality assurance at Blackman Kallick, a Chicago-based accounting firm, said she worries that by adding the AD&A “we would be introducing an element of bias” into auditor assessments.

By contrast, assessment of financial reporting “needs someone truly objective,” she said. That’s a part auditors should be continuing to play, “rather than moving into the preparer role” and speaking interpretively about how financial statements were put together, according to Waggoner.

Read the complete article at CFO.com