The American Institute of CPAs is encouraging firms to modernize the way they con-duet audits by using data analytics technology and working to improve the way employee benefit plan audits are conducted in response to a critical Labor Department report. In a speech in late January, AICPA president and CEO Barry Melancon discussed the findings of the DOL report, which found serious deficiencies in 39 percent of the audits of employee benefit plans that it examined. The AICPA put together a six-point action plan to address the issues in the report. Part of the plan involves improving the peer review process, and the AICPA has been working with the state CPA societies on that. "We need to make some specific changes in peer review as it relates to firms that take on new types of engagements that are very specialized," said Melancon. "We also have a plan that we are working on that would materially change peer review as it relates to a technology-based approach. We're actually piloting that beginning in the fall of 2016."
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