Quality registers, consultations and disagreements

How a firm keeps ISQM 1 quality registers, technical consultations and differences of opinion in Achekam, and the approvals those records do not block.

By Achekam · 11 October 2026 · 4 min read · For Accountants & audit firms in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya

Ask a quality partner where the firm's consultation records are and the honest answer is often "in a few people's inboxes". The complaints log is a spreadsheet on someone's desktop, the list of inspection findings lives in last year's board pack, and the professional judgement on that tricky revenue contract is a paragraph in a working paper nobody can find.

ISQM 1 does not prescribe a format for any of this, but it does expect the firm to be able to show how consultations happened, how disagreements were resolved and how it monitors its own quality. This article covers what Achekam keeps for a firm's quality registers, consultations and differences of opinion, and, just as important, what those records do not stop.

Registers that remember every version

The firm's quality registers are kept on Achekam's server: professional judgements, quality incidents, complaints and inspection progress, among others. Every version of an entry is kept, with who changed it.

That history matters more than the current state. When a complaint is reclassified, or an incident's root cause is rewritten after a remediation meeting, the earlier versions show what the firm knew and when. For monitoring and remediation under ISQM 1, that is the evidence an inspector or your own monitoring partner will want. The IAASB's page on ISQM 1 describes the standard's central requirement: a system of quality management that the firm designs, implements and operates, tailored to the firm and its engagements.

One limit to plan around: sign-off roles on professional judgements are checked only by the screen, not by the server. Treat the role check as a guide for staff rather than a control, and include a look at who signed off professional judgements in your periodic monitoring.

A consultation from question to closure

Staff can take a technical consultation on an engagement from the question, through to a conclusion, and on to closure. Used properly, the record answers four things: what exactly was asked, on what facts, who was consulted, and what was decided.

The habit that makes a consultation useful later is writing the question precisely. "Revenue - please advise" is not a question. "Does the multi-year maintenance element of this equipment contract form a separate performance obligation under the client's IFRS for SMEs policies, given the facts attached?" is one. The conclusion should then say how the engagement team applied it, so the closure step means the advice was used, not merely received.

When the team does not agree

A difference of opinion is recorded with each party's position, the escalation and the resolution. That structure follows the way ISQM 1 and ISA 220 (Revised) expect firms to handle disagreements within the engagement team, or between the team and the engagement quality reviewer or someone consulted: through the firm's policies, and resolved before the report is dated.

Writing down each party's position is uncomfortable for some teams, which is precisely why it is valuable. A manager who disagreed with a going concern conclusion, and whose view is recorded alongside the partner's and the resolution, is evidence of a firm where people can disagree. A file with no recorded disagreements over several years can say the opposite.

What these records do not stop

Here is the gap a quality partner needs to know about. An open consultation or an unresolved difference of opinion does not stop the auditor's report from being approved or signed. A check for open consultations does exist on Achekam's server, but the report approval does not use it and no page calls it.

There is a second limit in the same area. The Partner Quality Intervention Centre, which carries an "ISQM 1 / AQI" badge, has no screen that records an indicator value or opens an intervention, and nothing feeds it from the audit file. Three other quality menu entries open the same screen. If your firm tracks audit quality indicators, keep them where you keep them today.

The governance log behind the records

Record Governance keeps a log of changes to governed records: who did what, when and with what result. The log can be filtered, and it can be checked for an unbroken chain. Viewing it needs the AUDIT_LOG_VIEW permission, so decide which people in the quality function hold it. Note that it covers records under record governance, not every screen in Achekam, so do not describe it to an inspector as a log of everything.

A manual check before the report is signed

Because nothing blocks approval while a consultation is open, put the check into the people's workflow instead. Before the engagement partner approves the auditor's report:

1. Open the consultation list for the engagement and confirm every consultation is closed with its conclusion recorded.
2. Open differences of opinion and confirm each is resolved, with the resolution reflected in the file.
3. Where the firm has named an engagement quality reviewer, ask that person to confirm the same, since the reviewer's clearance is a control the system does enforce.
4. Note on the completion paper that the check was done, by whom and on what date.

The same discipline applies to the other quality record that is kept but not enforced: independence declarations, which cannot be approved in Achekam today.

Where to begin

Pick one register to move first, usually consultations, because they are the records most likely to be scattered across inboxes. Enter the open consultations from the current busy season, close the ones that are finished, and add the four-step check above to your completion checklist before the next report is approved.

General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.