What Should be on the Audit Committee’s 2022 Agenda?

At the beginning of each year, many accounting and consulting firms present their views on the issues that audit committees should focus on at year-end and during the coming 12 months. Below is a list (with hyperlinks to the documents) of six of these 2021 year-end and 2022 agenda papers.

• BDO, Audit Committee Priorities for 2022

• Deloitte Center for Board Effectiveness, On the audit committee’s agenda: What’s on the horizon for 2022?

• EY Center for Board Matters, What audit committees need to know for year‑end 2021 and beyond

• KPMG Board Leadership Center, On the 2022 audit committee agenda

• Protiviti, Setting the 2022 Audit Committee Agenda

• PwC Governance Insights Center, Approaching the 2021 year-end financial reporting season

The papers approach the topic of how audit committees should set their 2022 agendas at different levels of generality, and each firm has its own perspective on where audit committees should direct their time and attention. Not surprisingly, however, there are many common themes. Some frequently mentioned 2022 audit committee agenda topics include:

• Enterprise risk management; oversight of management’s approach to identifying and addressing risk.

• Cyber risk, data privacy, and cybersecurity.

• Role of internal audit; maintaining IA’s relevance and transforming its use of technology.

• ESG disclosure and the impact of ESG risks and opportunities on financial reporting.

• Impact of U.S. and global tax policy changes on financial reporting.

• Impact of COVID-19 on information systems, internal control, work environment, and culture.

• Changes in compliance risk and maintaining a positive compliance culture.

• Digital finance transformation; leveraging the use of technology in information management, reporting, and analytics.

A high-level review of these papers could be helpful to an audit committee as a check that it is not overlooking topics that should be on its agenda.