The ups and downs in the economy during the novel coronavirus pandemic are causing audit committees at public companies to focus on the disclosures in their financial statements and SEC filings about the current and potential impacts of COVID-19, according to a new report from KPMG.
The report, Challenges Presented by COVID-19, found that companies are reassessing, enhancing or establishing new internal controls due to pandemic-related disruptions to their business operations. Meanwhile internal auditors are adjusting their audit plans and activities.
Brett Erickson is managing principal of Obsidian Risk Advisors. He also serves on the advisory board of Loyola University Chicago's Center for Compliance Studies.
Jeff Moore is a seasoned professional with an impressive career spanning over three decades at ATI Restoration. Throughout his tenure, Jeff's strategic vision and industry knowledge have been instrumental in driving growth and expansion for the company. His leadership has transformed ATI from a regional restoration firm with revenue of $20M into America's largest family-operated restoration company, boasting over 70+ offices nationwide and revenue exceeding $900M.
As president and chief acquisitions officer, Jeff leads the executive team, spearheads acquisitions, and is the driving force behind ATI's ongoing growth. Over the past four years, Jeff and his dedicated mergers and acquisitions team have successfully negotiated, finalized, and integrated 18 strategic acquisitions, tripling EBITDA, doubling revenue, and multiplying the number of locations threefold. In addition to his work at ATI, Jeff advocates for the restoration industry and proudly holds the position of President for the Restoration Industry Association (RIA).
Brenna Johnson, SVP, product management at EZLynx, is a driving force behind several of the company's newest products. Johnson is passionate about leveraging technology to solve problems for independent insurance agents. As vice president of product management, she is actively involved in all phases of the development life cycle, and hopes to help transform the insurance industry by leveraging technology to improve agency profitability, productivity and serviceability.
Forecasting has become more challenging, including developing assumptions for the recoverability of goodwill and nonfinancial assets, as well as the realizability of deferred tax assets, making going-concern determinations and figuring other asset impairments more difficult, according to the report.
Nevertheless, audit committees are adapting to the new environment, as their companies allow more flexibility for remote work. Among the biggest areas of concern cited by the 114 U.S. audit committee members polled by the KPMG Audit Committee Institute are disclosures about the current and potential effects of COVID-19 (79 percent), preparation of forward-looking cash flow estimates (48 percent), and impairment of nonfinancial assets such as goodwill and other intangible assets (43 percent).
Audit committee members indicated that the remote work environment accelerated by COVID-19 has so far had little impact on the efficiency and effectiveness of their interactions with the management team and auditors.
Companies are reassessing their internal controls in response to COVID-19-related disruptions to their business operations. The most commonly cited disruptions included return-to-work plans (73 percent), IT system access and authentication for remote workers (69 percent) and cybersecurity (66 percent).
Audit committee members expect some environmental, social and governance issues to get much more attention from boards as a result of COVID-19 and recent protests against systemic racism. Survey respondents cited employee health, safety and well-being (85 percent), diversity within the company including the boardroom (53 percent) and corporate reputation (39 percent) as areas of greater focus for boards.
The pandemic has also caused many audit committees to reassess the scope of their workload agendas in addition to their risk oversight responsibilities. Most audit committee members who responded to the survey cited oversight responsibilities for a variety of COVID-related risks, including financial risks (83 percent), legal and regulatory compliance (70 percent), cybersecurity (62 percent) and data privacy (42 percent).
