New Audit Committee Effectiveness Center promotes successful corporate governance.

Last month the AICPA launched the Audit Committee Effectiveness Center, whose primary mission is to improve audit committee performance to the benefit of an organization's many stakeholders. The array of current and future resources available through this online Center (www.aicpa.org/audcommctr) will support and promote effective audit committees and position the CPA, who has the competencies, ethics and expertise required of financial experts, as the ideal audit committee member.

The Center houses information concerning audit committees of all sizes and types of organizations--publicly held, private, not-for-profit or other public interest entities. With the goal of improving corporate governance, the Center will provide guidance to corporate management and boards of directors regarding best practices in appointing and managing the audit committee function. It also will offer competency self-evaluation and training recommendations for audit committees and information on effectively interacting with multiple stakeholders.

Two of the Center's major components are the Audit Committee Matching System, which began last spring (The CPA Letter, July/Aug. 2003), and the new Audit Committee Toolkit. The Audit Committee Matching System enables CPAs to find opportunities to provide their financial expertise and commitment to corporate governance as audit committee members, as well as helps companies and organizations searching for audit committee members to locate eligible CPAs. Gratis registration is provided to AICPA members, and the search process is being offered as a public service to organizations for the foreseeable future. The service can be access through http://acms.aicpa.org.

The Audit Committee Toolkit, which contains matrices, questionnaires, sample forms, checklists and other items, is designed to help audit committees...