Quality Control in Public Accounting Firms: From Formalism to the Effectiveness of the Quality Assurance System

Quality control in public accounting firms is not just a review of files. It is a reality check for quality management.

Small and medium-sized public accounting firms, in particular, face the challenge of not only formally describing quality management but also implementing it in a risk-oriented, effective, and verifiable manner.

IDW QMS 1 has already significantly shifted the focus: away from a static quality assurance manual and toward a quality management system geared toward quality risks, responses, responsibilities, resources, information, and monitoring. The drafts of IDW EQMS 1 and IDW EQMS 2 published in 2026 show that this development is continuing in professional terms.

The work of the WPK’s Quality Control Commission also makes it clear: quality control remains a central professional issue. This is not merely a matter of whether individual audit files are complete. What is crucial is whether the firm has established a system that actually supports audit quality in day-to-day practice.

Typical critical issues in this context include:

• Quality objectives and quality risks remain too abstract and are not sufficiently tailored to specific practices.

• Reviews, root cause analyses, and follow-up actions are documented but are not consistently used to further develop the system.

• Order acceptance, consultations, reviews, and quality assurance throughout the project are formally regulated but are not always implemented in a way that stands up to scrutiny in practice.

• Findings from internal or external reviews do not lead to clear responsibilities, deadlines, and verifiable actions.

For public accounting firms, this means that a good quality management system is not just a file folder, but a management tool.

It must be tailored to the firm’s size, client structure, complexity, and risk profile. Especially for less complex firms, it is not the volume of documentation that matters, but its appropriateness and effectiveness.

As a result, one central question is becoming increasingly important for quality control:

Can the firm plausibly demonstrate that it identifies quality risks, responds appropriately to them, and learns from its findings?

In practice, it is therefore advisable to regularly examine three levels: the system, individual engagements, and actual practice. Only when these levels align does quality management become more than just compliance.

It becomes a genuine contribution to audit quality.