Your questions, answered plainly.

CPAB (Canadian Public Accountability Board) is the audit regulator for Canadian public-company audits. It inspects participating audit firms each year and publishes its inspection findings, which shape what auditors look for on the next engagement. If your audit firm is CPAB-registered, your audit will be performed under the rules CPAB inspects against — most prominently Canadian Auditing Standard (CAS) 315 (Revised) on risk assessment and CAS 540 (Revised) on estimates.

Typical fieldwork runs from a few weeks for a small TSX-V reporting issuer up to several months for a TSX-listed multi-entity group. Filing deadlines are absolute: non-venture reporting issuers must file annual audited financials within 90 days of fiscal year-end (NI 51-102), venture issuers within 120 days, and interim financials within 45 / 60 days. Most fee overruns are driven by client unreadiness — missing reconciliations, late confirmations, weak ICFR documentation — not audit complexity.

TSX-V audit fees commonly fall in a $50,000–$350,000 range depending on issuer size, sector, and complexity. Junior exploration issuers at the low end often pay $50k–$120k; mid-cap TSX-V issuers with operating revenue can pay $200k+. Big 4 fees run materially higher than CPAB-registered mid-tier firms for engagements of comparable complexity. Fees in Canada have risen 30–50% over five years, driven by a shrinking pool of CPAB-registered firms and inspection-driven scope expansion.

A complete pre-audit file for a Canadian public-company audit covers roughly 50 mandatory documents across 17 categories: draft financials and notes, trial balance, GL extract, sub-ledger agings, all material reconciliations, IFRS 15 application memos, IFRS 9 ECL model, lease register, impairment models, going-concern forecast, ICFR risk-and-control matrix and walkthrough memos, SOC 1 reports for service organizations, MD&A draft, audit-committee minutes, related-party list, legal letter responses, subsequent-events log, and the prior-year management letter. Auditus.ai indexes every one of these in its Upload checklist with the standard it supports and the audit-fee impact of leaving it missing.

National Instrument 52-109 requires the CEO and CFO of every Canadian reporting issuer to certify their annual and interim filings — including the design and operating effectiveness of disclosure controls and procedures (DC&P) and internal control over financial reporting (ICFR). Venture issuers can use a scaled certification (Form 52-109FV1/FV2) that doesn't require the ICFR design conclusion. Material weaknesses in ICFR must be disclosed and remediated; failure to certify accurately can attract CSA enforcement action.

First-year engagements carry meaningful incremental cost because the auditor must perform CAS 510 opening-balance procedures — including a review of the prior auditor's working papers — and is generally less familiar with your entity. The fastest way to keep first-year costs predictable is to: (1) provide a complete chart of accounts and prior-year audited financials with the engagement letter, (2) compile every CAS 510 expected procedure in advance, (3) prepare ICFR documentation per CAS 315 (Revised), and (4) confirm the prior auditor will release their files. Auditus.ai's First-year audit scenario surfaces every standard that drives this work.

IFRS are the accounting standards that govern how your financial statements are PREPARED (revenue recognition, lease accounting, impairment, fair value, etc.). CAS (Canadian Auditing Standards) are the auditing standards that govern how your auditor's AUDIT is performed (risk assessment, evidence, sampling, reporting). For a Canadian reporting issuer, your financials are prepared under IFRS as adopted in Canada and audited under CAS. NI 52-107 is the CSA rule that ties them together — it specifies that IFRS + CAS is the acceptable combination for reporting issuers.

Yes, but it requires a change-of-auditor notice filed with the CSA (NI 51-102) including a reporting package signed by both the predecessor and successor auditor. The successor must perform CAS 510 procedures over opening balances and request access to the predecessor's working papers. Audit-committee approval is required (NI 52-110). Mid-year switches are common after a Big-4-to-mid-tier move, ownership change, or audit-firm independence issue, but they add cost in the first year.

A material weakness is a deficiency, or combination of deficiencies, in internal control over financial reporting (ICFR) such that there is a reasonable possibility that a material misstatement of the financial statements will not be prevented or detected on a timely basis. Under NI 52-109, identified material weaknesses must be disclosed in the certificates and in the MD&A. Significant deficiencies — less severe than material weaknesses but still meaningful — are communicated by the auditor under CAS 265 to management and the audit committee in writing.

Going concern is the assumption that an entity will continue to operate for at least 12 months from the date of the financial statements. CAS 570 requires the auditor to evaluate management's going-concern assessment, conclude on the appropriateness of the basis of accounting, and determine whether there is material uncertainty. Where uncertainty exists, the audit report carries an Emphasis of Matter (CAS 706) and IAS 1 paragraphs 25–26 require disclosure of the uncertainty in the financial-statement notes. A going-concern qualification can trigger covenant defaults, financing complications, and exchange-listing reviews.