Overview

Association is a term generally used within the profession to indicate a public accountant's involvement with an enterprise or with information issued by that enterprise. Association can arise in three ways: (i) when a public accountant associates himself or herself by some action on his or her part with information issued by an enterprise; (ii) when an enterprise or some other party has indicated (either in writing or orally) without the public accountant's knowledge or consent that the public accountant was involved with information issued by an enterprise; (iii) when a third party assumes that a public accountant is involved with information issued by an enterprise.

A public accountant has no control over third party assumptions about his or her involvement with information or how others represent his or her involvement with information. A public accountant can, however, control how he or she associates himself or herself with information.

The purpose of Section 5020 is to describe how a public accountant associates himself or herself with information, the professional responsibilities that stem from such association and the procedures that a public accountant can take to limit the inappropriate use of his or her name. The phrase "use of his or her name" includes a reference to the public accountant by virtue of role (auditor, reviewer, etc.) as well as to the use of the public accountant's name.