Slight Increase in 2008 Audit Fees, FERF Survey Finds

Companies saw a slight increase in audit fees in 2008 as compared with the previous year, revealed an annual survey from Financial Executives Research Foundation (FERF), the research affiliate of Financial Executives International.

The Audit Fee Survey polled FEI members from 110 United States publicly held companies, 245 U.S. privately held companies and nine foreign companies.

Publicly held companies paid on average $3.7 million in total audit fees for fiscal year 2008, representing an increase of 2.2 percent over total audit fees paid for the prior fiscal year. In comparison, total audit fees paid by privately held companies responding to the survey averaged $219,500, a 3.7 percent increase over the prior year. Public company audits averaged approximately 9,881 hours in 2008, while private companies averaged about 1,903 hours.

The press release is available in the FEI press room.  

The survey results are available on the FERF bookstore (free to FEI members).

For instant results on audit fees, audit hours, blended rate-per-hour and other benchmarking information, check out AuditFeeCheck, FERF’s new online tool created from the survey results. AuditFeeCheck can filter survey responses by size of company, filing status, industry and even auditor to produce a customized report to benchmark audit fees.