Evaluation under AQMM is broadly categories into 3 segments, namely Practice Management (Operation), Human Resource Management and Practice Management (Strategic/ Functional) with a total score of 600 points. Based on the score(s) obtained, the concerned audit firm can find it’s level (ranging from Level 1 to 4), wherein Level 1 depicts that the firm is very nascent, Level 4 indicates that the firm has made significant adoption of standards and procedures. Accordingly, all firms must strive to improve to achieve/ upgrade to level 4 under the AQMM.

Evaluation of the Audit Quality Maturity Model (AQMM) offers certain benefits to the audit firms, like Assessing the current level of audit quality maturity, identifying areas requiring improvement, developing a roadmap for upgrading to the higher level of audit maturity, etc.

ICAI has made the AQMM evaluation mandatory after about a year from the launch of the AQMM v1.0 by the Centre for Audit Quality (CAQ) of ICAI in July 2021. Further, the scores and the level arrived by the firms under AQMM evaluation, also needs to be reviewed by a Peer Reviewer under Peer Review Mechanism of ICAI. Alternatively, the audit firm can also choose to get their AQMM levels reviewed even before the peer review cycle gets due, through an AQMM Reviewer. The level of the firm after being reviewed by the Peer reviewer/ AQMM reviewer shall be hosted on the website of the ICAI alongside the details of the peer review certificate.