The fast changing and immensely competitive environment often calls upon organisations to enter into complex business deals and transactions where accounting practices and norms are not yet settled. In such situations, accounting for transactions and auditing thereof becomes a difficult task. This gives rise to the need for authoritative guidance on such matters. The Expert Advisory Committee (EAC) of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India fits into the role of giving such authoritative guidance in the form of Opinions on matters relating to application and implementation of accounting and auditing standards and other pronouncements comprising generally accepted accounting and auditing principles under peculiar and intricate situations. Over a period of time, EACs role has become widely acknowledged with members in practice and industry alike increasingly seeking the services of EAC to unravel wide array of issues and complex problems while discharging their duties, such as preparation and presentation of financial statements, reconciling the views of auditors, management, various stakeholders and authorities, etc.

Opinions can be obtained from the EAC on payment of nominal charges of Rs. 25,000/- (Rs. 50, 000/- proposed) as per its Advisory Service Rules which are available on the website of the ICAI, under the head Resources. The Rules can also be obtained from the Institutes Head Office at New Delhi. For further information, Secretary, Expert Advisory Committee can be contacted through e-mail at eac@icai.org.

For the benefit of the members, EAC also regularly publishes Compendium of Opinions where the opinions finalised during a year are published in a volume of the Compendium. So far, EAC has released 28 volumes of the Compendium. A CD of Compendium of Opinions containing more than 1000 opinions issued up to January 2009 has also been released by the Committee. All these publications of the Committee are available for sale at the Insitutes Office at New Delhi and its Regional Council Offices at Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Kanpur.