The number of US companies forced to withdraw financial statements because of accounting errors has surged to a nine-year high, raising questions about why mistakes are going unnoticed by auditors. In the first 10 months of this year, 140 public companies told investors that previous financial statements were unreliable and had to reissue them with corrected figures, according to data from Ideagen Audit Analytics.
inspectors found a jump in deficiencies in its inspections of audit work after the pandemic, and the agency toughened sanctions for the worst breaches of audit standards.
has argued that its tougher inspection regime since the pandemic will start to show results in future years. “Our most recent inspections have seen significant improvement in the aggregate deficiency rates at the largest firms, which we expect to see reflected when the results are finalised next year,” it said.