The Impact of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG)- Related Matters on Financial Statements and Audits

Course Description

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) has become an area of increasing focus. ESG reporting includes a broad spectrum of quantitative and qualitative information. Interested parties seek to understand the effects of relevant ESG matters on an entity?s business strategy, cash flows, financial position, and financial performance. This course will focus on the impact of ESG-related matters on the fair preparation of financial statements and related disclosures, and the related financial statement audit considerations.

Major Topics

• Evolving guidance from the AICPA and other stand-setters related to environmental, social, and governance matters
• Risks of material misstatement in financial statements and related disclosures emerging from environmental, social, and governance matters

Learning Objectives

Upon completing this course, you should be able to:

• Explain the increasing importance of environmental, social, and governance matters to financial statements and annual reports.
• Describe audit risks and considerations in a financial statement audit related to these matters.

Course Information

• CPD Credit: 2.0 hours Accounting
• Prerequisites: None
• Program Level: Basic
• Advance Preparation: None
• Who Should Participate: Anyone responsible for preparing or attesting upon financial statements.

Instructor

• Name: Jennifer Louis
• Hometown: Charlotte, NC
• Bio: Jennifer has over 25 years experience in designing and instructing high-quality training programs in a wide variety of technical and ?soft skills? topics needed for professional and organization success. In 2003 she founded Emergent Solutions Group, which is dedicated to meeting organization?s professional training needs on a project or part-time basis. Jennifer serves a wide variety of clients, including public accounting firms, state CPA societies, private industry corporations, and public sector agencies.Previously Jennifer served as the Director of Audit Product Development at Surgent Professional Education for three years. Prior to that, Jennifer was Executive Vice President/Director of Training Services at AuditWatch, Inc., a highly respected training and audit process consulting firm later acquired by Thomson Reuters. Over her six years at AuditWatch, Jennifer served many roles. She began her career at AuditWatch as Vice President of Product Development. Jennifer also served as an instructor and consultant for the firm?s Audit Productivity Improvement Program (a comprehensive program enabling accounting firms to enhance audit quality and improve audit efficiency), as well as various other training courses. Later, Jennifer was primarily responsible for working with clients to design high-caliber, customized training programs. She led the Training Services Division, which includes AuditWatch University (?core-level? staff training for new hires to managers) and related offerings. She also co-authored the Guide to Value-Added Auditing (Thomson/Practitioners Publishing Company, Fort Worth, TX, July 2001). Before joining AuditWatch, Jennifer was the Financial/Operational Audit Manager at AARP. While at AARP she served as one of their specially trained facilitators available as a resource throughout the organization for designing and leading strategic meetings and trainings. Jennifer was also an Audit Manager at Deloitte, in Washington, DC. During her five years with Deloitte, she was a frequent local and national instructor. Jennifer also served as an instructor for the firm?s national ?Train the Trainers? program. Jennifer graduated summa cum laude from Marymount University with a BBA-Accounting. She is currently a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and is licensed to practice accounting in the Commonwealth of Virginia and North Carolina.Contact Jennifer via email at jlouis@emergentgroup.net, or via LinkedIn