Mr. Charles Landes, CPA, MBA, was a speaker at the 2011 CalCPA A&A conference. As always, lots of great comments.
He spent some time talking about the Clarity Project. That has resulted in rewriting the entire body of GAAS, putting everything into a new format, and renumbering everything.
I’ve discussed SAS 122 here.
One particular comment from Mr. Landes was that the clarity project was not intended to turn our world upside down.
I would agree. SAS 122 rearranges all of GAAS but does not radically change the audit literature.
On the other hand, there is something in the range of 20 or 40 new presumptively mandatory requirements. I’ve not bothered to count them, but trust me, there are a lot of new things. A huge number of them have “shall” in the comment, meaning they are presumptively mandatory.
In addition to reorganizing and rewriting all of GAAS, there will also be a revised auditor’s report.
By the way, if you haven’t yet read this summary of the changes from SAS 122, you really should download a copy and read it: Summary of change in requirements… It is a superb resource.