Going concern KAM, EOM, MURGC

I thought I had written my last post on going concern but suddenly, I discovered KAM, EOM and MURGC. I couldn’t resist a comment.

Please note that KAM has nothing to do with a Key Account Manager in this context. It is simply a Key Auditing Matter.

And EOM is not End of Month, nor is it End of Message. It is not the Employee of the Month either and has nothing to do with the well-known medical expression, Extra-Ocular Movement nor any of the other 25 recognised meanings. Auditors have invented yet another EOM to keep people guessing: Emphasis of Matter. Of course!

So what is going on here? Auditors have taken two popular acronyms KAM and EOM, given them new meanings and associated them with MURGC. What percentage of qualified accountants word-wide knows what MURGC means? Until I had read the recent publication of the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) [1], I had no idea what it meant.

For those of you who do not know what MURGC is, it is of course: Material Uncertainty Relating to Going Concern.

[1] Frequently asked questions August 2022, Reporting going concern matters in the Auditor’s Report, published by the Going Concern Task Force of the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) (https://www.iaasb.org/publications/reporting-going-concern-matters-auditors-report)