Unusually low or high fees both can signal trouble: weak audits for the former and potential conflicts of interest for the latter. "Companies paying the highest fees [may do so to gain] more flexibility and aggression in accounting," says Whisenant. He has done studies that suggest that fees that are unexpectedly high or low "can both lead to conditions where the shareholders do not benefit."

Take, as an extreme case, Fannie Mae, which in 2003 paid a surprisingly low $2.7 million for its audit by KPMG. An accounting scandal the following year subsequently caused the company's audit bill to soar to $203 million (paid to Deloitte & Touche after KPMG was dismissed).

More recently, in building its case against David Friehling, auditor of Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme, the SEC charged him with raking in "substantial fees." But, in fact, the opposite is true: that Madoff's multi-billion-dollar fund paid the tiny audit firm of Friehling & Horowitz a mere $186,000 per year should have been a glaring red flag.

CFOs love to control costs, but when it comes to audits, they also want to make sure they are getting the most they can out of their auditor. Itkin says OSG's RFP was initially driven by a cost-reduction strategy, but proved "most effective" in securing more services.

Among the services Itkin says he negotiated were international tax planning, director education for both the audit committee and the board as a whole, and access to PwC's industry specialists. "The relationship has become so much more interactive," he says, with OSG receiving "on a consistent and frequent basis the insights [the firm] has into changes in accounting policy, major accounting issues impacting our industry or likely to impact our industry, perception as to where the SEC is moving, and a clearer awareness of SEC comment letters [sent to our competitors.]"

And what about the perennial CFO complaint that audits too often consist of recent college graduates camping out in a conference room where they learn to "tick and tie" on their client's dime? Itkin says OSG has two partners and a senior manager on the account, "each of whom has material industry experience and is [frequently] present here. To us, the commitment and availability of that resource was an important criteria in the selection."

In the end, says Itkin, "I was interested in securing the same level of service at a lower cost, and we ultimately achieved a higher level of service and a lower cost."

Auditing your auditor, it seems, is an engagement well worth undertaking.

Tim Reason is editorial director of CFO.

Custom Audit Fee Benchmarks

Do you know how your audit fees compare with those of companies like yours? A new online application from the editorial team of CFO provides a fast and accurate way to benchmark your audit fees against what your peers paid, over a three-year period.

Type in your company name (or industry and revenue size) to generate a peer group and, for a fee, the CFO Audit Fee Report will generate a customized, downloadable analysis. The CFO Audit Fee Report automatically identifies outliers that can skew results and are normally hidden among multiple filings, including restatements, management- or auditor-reported control failures, and auditor changes.

The report allows you to view the full list of companies and auditors in your peer group before you finalize your purchase. The final report includes the following:

Summary
Provides an immediate benchmark of what your company pays and how it compares with your selected peer group

Adjustments for Outliers
Analyzes how outlier events affect audit fees within your industry and peer group; provides a summary of outliers within your peer group; and allows you to exclude or include outliers from your overall analysis

Auditor Analysis
Analyzes what each auditor charges the companies in your peer group and how much those fees varied; estimates what each firm hypothetically would charge your company; and shows you each auditor's market share within your peer group

Complete Data
Provides a complete list of the companies in your peer group, their individual audit firms, fees, and additional data used in the report analysis. CFO sources its data from Audit Analytics, a leading provider of audit-fee information.

To generate your report, or view a sample, click here.

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