Guidance on suitable criteria for developing subject matter reporting standards

A variety of bodies in Canada and internationally develop (or will develop) standards for use by organizations to provide information to their stakeholders. These bodies may be governments, professions, industry associations, etc., and such information provided by organizations may be financial, non-financial, quantitative or qualitative.

In many cases, users of this information want to know that it is credible and reliable for decision making. Assurance practitioners (such as professional accountants) can lend credibility to such information by conducting assurance engagements on the subject matter information.

This non-authoritative guidance is to assist subject matter reporting standard setters in developing standards that have the characteristics necessary to enable an independent practitioner to perform an assurance engagement. This paper explains certain key features of assurance engagements in a straightforward manner and the key questions that a standard setter might ask in self-assessing standards that they draft.

If you have comments on this guidance or suggestions for future guidance, please reach out to Kaylynn Pippo.