Facilitated State Board Access (FSBA)

Virginia is participating in early adoption of the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) Peer Review Facilitated State Board Access (FSBA), a new process created by the AICPA to help the profession keep up with the evolving changes in the business and regulatory environments and to address the demand for greater peer review transparency. As an early adopter, Virginia is helping to ensure a smooth transition to national implementation. 

Benefits of FSBA
The goal of this new process is to create a nationally uniform system through which CPA firms can satisfy state board peer review information submission requirements, increase transparency, and retain control over their peer review results. The AICPA and CPA state societies are working together to allow this process to become the primary means by which all state boards of accountancy obtain peer review results. Over time, this new process will help to make submission of your firm’s peer review information easier. However, until further notice, this new process WILL NOT replace the current peer review information submission requirements of the Virginia Board of Accountancy (BOA), which licenses firms practicing in Virginia. Therefore, firms will need to follow the current BOA requirements until notified differently.   

What This Means for Your Firm
FSBA uses the existing peer review process to facilitate the voluntary disclosure of peer review results to BOAs. To accommodate this new process, the AICPA has made some alterations to the peer review acceptance process. Firms whose peer reviews are accepted by the VSCPA Peer Review Committee in June 2008 or later will receive a notice of these changes along with their acceptance letters.

FSBA Implementation
The states of North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas participated in the FSBA pilot that ended in March 2008.  Virginia, Michigan and Minnesota will begin the process in May-June 2008. Additional states will participate in early adoption of FSBA prior to full national implementation in May 2009 in connection with the acceptance of new peer review reports issued under the revised AICPA Standards for Performing and Reporting on Peer Reviews (Standards). 

Frequently Asked Questions