High-quality audits contribute to the extent to which we can trust financial information. As stakeholders demand more and more diverse corporate information, companies use experts, beyond accounting, for reporting this. Likewise, auditors depend on other experts, scientists, engineers, actuaries, to supplement their skills to provide the highest quality audit of financial statements. Such multidisciplinary teams aim to meet the demands of a fast-changing and complex business environment.

Multidisciplinary models have been the subject of debate in Europe and beyond. We asked 18 people from practice, including regulators and audit committee chairs, how they view working with multidisciplinary teams. Based on their insight we conclude the following:

• multidisciplinary audit teams contribute to high-quality audits
• auditors benefit from experts’ input, especially from internal ones
• firms should further develop their capability to work with internal experts
• firms should stay multidisciplinary to meet evolving expectations from the audit
• auditors’ priorities remain audit quality, the public interest, independence and ethics