The Peer Review Program is a critical part of the accounting profession. For consumers of financial statements this program ensures attestation work is correct and follows the latest rules and regulations. For firms the program verifies that you have the skills needed to perform attestation work.
To ensure the profession remains self-regulated, AICPA has evolved the program to meet the needs of today and the future. Moving forward the rules for Administering Entities require a CPA on staff to oversee the program. Hiring a CPA to administer the program would be cost prohibitive for MSCPA.
Faced with a difficult decision the MSCPA Peer Review Committee and Board of Directors weighed our options and selected the organization that best meets our needs. On May 31, 2018 MSCPA will transfer the Peer Review Administering Entity role for Montana to the Nevada Society of CPAs (NVCPA).
MSCPA members serve as technical reviewers for NVCPA and after talking to their staff we feel they will be able to offer the great service you are used to receiving from Carol.
I believe you will find the NVCPA staff both competent and friendly. Kary and Anna have experience administering the programs for Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, and Nebraska. They have helped countless firms navigate PRIMA and look forward to helping you.
Anna Durst, CPA (adurst@nevadacpa.org), CEO (pictured left)
Kary Arnold (karnold@nevadacpa.org), Peer Review Program Manager (pictured right)
Another change being made to the program is an increased focus on familiarity risk. Adding Montana to NVCPA helps bring more diversity to their pool of technical reviewers, to mitigate this risk. Montana firms will continue to perform peer reviews and our technical reviewers will have an opportunity to work with NVCPA, but your review will be reviewed by CPAs from other states.
For firms, you will receive communications from NVCPA related to your reviews. All peer reviews will be administered by the NVCPA after May 31, 2018. All firms and reviewers will continue to use the AICPA program, PRIMA, during the peer review process.
I would like to thank the MSCPA Peer Review Committee for their work on this and their help in making the transition as smooth as possible. I would also like to thank Carol for her work in making sure the MSCPA Peer Review Program runs smoothly and for taking excellent care of our members. Carol is going to help with the transition before retiring after 14 years with MSCPA.
If you have any issues, with the Peer Review Program or anything else please do not hesitate to contact me at allen@mscpa.org 406.442.7301 or Carol Lopuch at carol@mscpa.org 406.449.7714.
Thanks,
Montana Society of CPAs 