GCAS Receives Peer Review from Independent Accounting Firm
[Silver Spring, MD, December 19, 2007] GCAS announced today that an independent peer review of its auditing practice for the North America Area of its operations was successfully completed. For the fourth consecutive time, GCAS has been recognized as adhering to the stringent quality standards established by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the national professional organization of CPAs in the United States.
GCAS has designed a system of quality control to ensure that the service it provides meets the highest professional standards. Though not required, GCAS voluntarily engages an independent accounting firm every three years to measure the practices of its offices in North America against those expected to be performed by accounting firms operating within the public accounting industry.
The peer review was conducted by the accounting firm of Johnson Lambert & Co and they made an independent assessment of GCAS’ quality control policies and procedures and considered its actions to ensure that it hires only qualified people, that its staff is properly trained and supervised, that it advances them to responsibilities they are capable of handling, and that it provides them with necessary technical resources. They also inspected the GCAS’ administrative files and records and interviewed professional personnel. A copy of the report from Johnson Lambert & Co is available upon request.
The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (www.aicpa.org) is the national, professional association of CPAs, with approximately 350,000 members, including CPAs in business and industry, public practice, government, and education; student affiliates; and international associates. It sets ethical standards for the profession and U.S. auditing standards for audits of private companies; federal, state and local governments; and non-profit organizations. It also develops and grades the Uniform CPA Examination.
Since 1977, GCAS has been organized by the Seventh-day Adventist Church to perform structurally independent financial audits, reviews of trust operations, and tests of policy compliance for more than 2500 denominational organizations worldwide that have an estimated asset base of US$20 billion. With a team of approximately 200 highly qualified professionals operating from offices in 40 countries, GCAS is positioned to deliver audits of the highest quality at the best economical value.