A poll of 145 executives at 12 large public companies has found that many believe that the number of internal control requirements is becoming too high, which has led their companies to being behind the curve in several key metrics, Accounting Today reported. While overall satisfied with the work of their external auditors, the executives believe the auditors require excessive documentation around certain control areas, which are seen as time-intensive and disruptive to business flow, particularly where it concerns routine estimates, data processing and disclosures. Other challenging areas include non-routine transactions, income tax provisioning, and access to data, with one third of poll respondents pointing to these areas as trouble spots.

Many executives believe it is the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOAB) that makes auditors ask for so much documentation, as they themselves do not want to be sanctioned by the regulator. Some interviewed later said that there was an inconsistency among audit firms in terms of how much documentation they required; those respondents believed that this inconsistency was connected to the audit firms' standing with the PCAOB; those that were already being watched by the board wanted more documents, while those that were in relatively good standing wanted fewer, according to the reports.

This research was conducted by academics at Arizona State University, Brigham Young University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Mississippi