From our leaders
Change is constant. Economic volatility, technological disruption, climate and geopolitical concerns have become the norm. Most recently, we’ve seen and felt the impacts of the election of a new U.S. president, including pending changes to leadership at the SEC that will bring changes in priorities and views that will influence future actions of standard setters and regulators. Although we are all becoming more accustomed to these constant shifts, we still face new complexities and growing uncertainty.
As leaders, we need to find the opportunities to explore through reinvention and find new possibilities to create and deliver value, while remaining grounded in the fundamentals of our business. At PwC, delivering quality and acting with integrity are expected of us and what we expect of ourselves, especially in times of change. This commitment to quality and integrity is foundational to our purpose and values and embedded in our culture, strategy, and organization. It is — and always will be — our number one priority.
Transparency regarding matters relating to audit quality is important to meeting those expectations, which is why we are pleased to provide below a brief update to our 2024 Audit Quality Report. The actions described below are important to maintaining momentum in the pursuit of quality — helping us stay on the leading edge by making connections, evaluating implications, solving complex problems, and delivering insights that spark new ways of thinking.
We are proud to consistently serve as a leader on quality within the profession. Thank you for continuing to engage with us as we strive to meet our quality objectives.
Maintaining momentum in our pursuit of quality
A March 2025 update to our 2024 Audit Quality Report
Our people
- We are focused on helping to create new opportunities for entry and offering greater access to the profession for aspiring talent, including through Destination CPA.
- We have increased our attention to existing and potential new activities to raise awareness of careers in accounting and auditing, including additional outreach at colleges and universities and new resources to increase student interest in accounting, such as our Accountants have impACCT video series.
- We remain focused on providing our skilled audit professionals opportunities for growth and competitive rewards and benefits. We’ve increased entry-level salaries and continue to support performance-based raises and bonuses at all levels.
Read more in our 2024 Audit Quality Report
Our 2024 Audit Quality Report provides transparency, through the unique perspective of our leadership, into the health of our audit practice, actions we have taken to satisfy our quality objectives, and how the quality of our audits have measured up to expectations - including insights into over 20 quantitative transparency data points related to our culture, people, audit approach and technology, and quality monitoring.
Highlights from our 2024 Audit Quality Report
Our culture and values
- Our leaders prioritize the delivery of quality service. Quality, ethical behavior and accountability are regularly reinforced in communications. Our accountability framework specifies expected actions and behaviors, and includes consequences when exceptions occur.
- The most senior members of our Operating Committee, including the Senior Partner, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Commercial Officer, Chief Financial Officer, General Counsel, Assurance Leader, Tax Leader, and Advisory Leader signed income-at-risk provisions that are are expected to apply in circumstances such as pervasive and significant firm-level incidents, for example, significant breakdowns in the system of quality management.
- Our independence compliance programs consider independence in both fact and appearance and include systems and processes that support our people in maintaining independence. We've issued guidance to assist teams in mitigating the risk of violations in certain areas of our independence policy that we identified as more likely to involve complex, unusual, or unfamiliar circumstances, for example, voluntary and involuntary situations that could lead to a restricted client becoming unrestricted, and certain joint business relationships.
- If an independence exception occurs, we determine whether the firm remains objective and impartial and timely communicate the matter to our client.
- We accept or continue audit relationships only when supported by our assessment of business, litigation, and reputational risks and audit procedures can be satisfactorily designed and executed.
A snapshot of our FY24 transparency data points
97% of our audit professionals reported that they receive consistent messages about the importance of audit quality from leadership
Total average annual voluntary turnover decreased to 12.7%. Average annual overtime for our associates through directors also decreased.
We hired over 1,800 entry-level and over 50 experienced audit professionals, respectively, Total headcount increased to over 16,000 audit team members.
Less than 1% of the issuer annual financial statements audited by PwC in the past five years have been restated.
Average training hours per audit professional increased to 90.
199 audits were subject to internal inspection with a compliance rate of 97%
The ratio of partners/managing directors (MDs) in technical support roles to total partners/MDs increased to 1 to 5.7.
The ratio of partners/managing directors to all other audit team members (including ACs) decreased to 1 to 13.7.
10 audits (out of 64 audit inspections) were included in Part I.A of our 2024 PCAOB Inspection report (generally covering 2023 year-ends).
More than 100,000 auditors across the PwC Network use Aura.
The percentage of audit hours provided by specialists decreased slightly to 16.9%.
Our 300+ independence specialists conducted over 38,000 independence related consultations.
What is audit quality
- Audit quality means that we consistently
- Our audit quality principles are achieved through our audit quality practices
Audit quality means that we consistently
- comply with professional standards;
- exercise professional skepticism;
- use our experience to identify and resolve issues timely; and
- apply a deep and broad understanding of our clients’ businesses and the financial environment in which they operate in identifying and responding to risks relevant to our audit.
We have the right leadership, people and technical capabilities to achieve remarkable things. And we will be relentless in our pursuit of providing quality work across the firm.
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