Quality assurance

In organisational terms, essential quality assurance and risk management processes are bundled in the Audit Quality Unit. The team of the Audit Quality Unit acts as an interface to our policy department, especially with regard to the technical requirements for the audit methodology.

Our quality assurance includes measures that are independent of the audit engagement and those that accompany it.

Our quality is externally controlled by another audit firm within the scope of the peer review as well as annually reviewed by the Auditor Oversight Authority (APAS).

We carry out internal quality control both during and after the work. This increases safety even further. Among other things, all partners and managers responsible for the order are assessed on a regular basis as part of an internal review.

Ensuring independence and impartiality is important for compliance with legal requirements and the trust of our clients.

Therefore, KPMG has implemented extensive measures to ensure independence and impartiality, such as training, obtaining independence declarations and the KPMG tool "Sentinel", which is used to check the admissibility of all services before accepting an engagement.

With our worldwide, ISQM1-compliant quality assurance, we have a consistent global quality management system that covers the relevant areas of order acceptance, planning and execution.

We work worldwide according to a uniform audit methodology. With binding standard procedures, minimum audit procedures and direct access to engagement documentation, we ensure quality worldwide via our KPMG Clara tool.

Quality assurance requires communication with clients. Therefore, after the audit, an assessment is made by our clients.

For this purpose, we have developed two KPMG assessment questionnaires (relationship scorecards). We analyse the results of this survey together with the clients in order to take measures that are directly incorporated into the follow-up audit.

Our engagement quality control review partners ensure on an ongoing basis that the audit is conducted in compliance with all relevant auditing standards. In cases of particular importance, EQCR partners are directly involved in the decision-making process.

With our focus on quality, we demonstrably achieve very good inspection results from regulators such as APAS. The number of findings by the German Financial Reporting Enforcement Panel (FREP) or the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority's balance sheet control is significantly below average for our clients.