The findings support the regulators’ contention that the new top-down, risk-based approach under AS5 makes the audit process timelier and efficient by decreasing audit report lags and facilitating firms’ efforts to meet the reporting deadline set by the SEC, especially when the firms have an effective internal control system. However, the firms with material internal control problems that persist either at the company level or at the accounts/transaction level continue to experience larger reporting lags in the post-AS5 years compared with the clean SOX 404 firms. The results are generally consistent with auditors focusing more on critical risk areas associated with ineffective internal controls and applying principle-oriented top-down, risk-based audit procedures to minimize risk, which requires increased audit efforts and longer audit time to accomplish their work properly.

Mitra, S., H. Song, and J. S. Yang. 2015. The Effect of Auditing Standard No. 5 on Audit Report Lags. Accounting Horizons 29 (3): 507-527.

This study investigates whether the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s (PCAOB) Auditing Standard No. 5 (AS5), which was introduced in June 2007, makes the audit process timelier in an extended post-AS5 period from 2007 to 2011 relative to a pre-AS5 period of 2006–2007. For this, the authors focus on evaluating the AS5 effect on audit report lags (ARL) both for the firms with material internal control weaknesses (ICW) and the firms with a clean SOX 404 opinion (non-ICW). ARL, a proxy for audit effort, has long been an important topic of academic research because ARL is considered critical in influencing timely judgment and decision making by financial statement users.

First, the authors investigate the impact of the change from AS2 to AS5 on audit report lags over an extended period from 2006 to 2011. Second, they compare the effect of AS5 on report lags separately for the large accelerated filers and accelerated filers given significant differences in the 10-K filing deadlines for these two types of filers. Third, they examine the impact of AS5 on audit report lags for firms with internal control weaknesses (ICW) with separate analyses for firms with company-level control weaknesses and for firms with account-specific control weaknesses.

The analyses are conducted for the period from 2006 to 2011, which covers the AS2 period of 2006–2007 and the AS5 period of 2007–2011. The sample comprises 2,062 AS2 observations (divided between 1,877 non-ICW and 185 ICW observations) and 9,200 AS5 observations (divided between 8,870 non-ICW and 330 ICW observations). The authors use Compustat Annual and Business Segment files to gather information.

• Audit report lags in the AS5 years were significantly lower than those in the AS2 years; the report lags decline, on an average, by 1.85 days.
• ICW firms, in general, have larger report lags than the clean SOX 404 firms, but AS5 does not have an incremental effect on the report lags for the ICW firms, indicating the report lags decline only for the firms with a clean SOX 404 opinion.
• Separate analyses for the ICW firms with company-level and account-specific material weaknesses show that audit report lags for those firms do not significantly change between the AS2 and AS5 periods and continue to be higher compared with those for the clean SOX 404 firms.
• Additional tests using a constant sample of firms demonstrate a learning curve effect of AS5 in reducing report lags in the post-AS5 period both for the full sample and for the firms with a clean SOX 404 opinion.
• The report lags significantly decline in both the early and late AS5 periods for both the large accelerated filers and accelerated filers and for the full constant sample.
• Overall, the results show that the new top-down, risk-based approach under AS5 makes the audit process more efficient and timelier by decreasing audit report lags.

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