All publicly listed U.S. companies must engage a registered accounting firm to audit their annual financial statements. These audit firms report their engagements to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB).
There are a number of reasons why a public company may choose to change its accounting firm, including cost or reputation concerns. However, changes in audit firms can also be caused by tension between the management team and the team reviewing their work. These changes are therefore often considered to be a red flag.
Hudson Labs provides access to auditor turnover tracking data, derived from the PCAOB database. Our datasets make it easy to see which companies use reputable audit firms, which may not, as well as making it easy to spot companies where auditor changes are frequent.
Coverage universe: U.S. issuers filing a 10-K
Coverage initiation date: Jan 1, 2019
Screen for companies with at least one auditor change
Find the auditor turnover screen on the "Ideas" page of the Hudson Labs platform.
Screen inclusion criteria: At least one auditor change (per PCAOB database) since 2019.
See note on interim turnover above.
Data dictionary:
Display Name | Definition |
Number of auditor changes | Number of times the company has switched their audit firm, according to the PCAOB records over the past 10 years. |
Current auditor | The most recently reported audit firm in the PCAOB database. Auditor changes that happen in between filing periods may not be immediately incorporated. |
As-of date for current auditor | The date of the most recent filing for which there is available PCAOB data |
Previous auditors | List of previous audit firms over the last 10 years. |
Important note: This dataset records auditor changes when the 10-K is filed. Interim turnover is not captured.
Company page - Auditor turnover view
Find company-specific auditor and auditor turnover details on the "Red flags" section of the relevant company page of the Hudson Labs platform.
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