Engagement Programs Offer Keys to Efficiency -- How Can You Unlock the Door?
The CPA Technology Advisor
Review of Engagement & Trial Balance Systems
Aug. 2006 Issue
By Tom Davis, CPA
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From the trial balance perspective, these applications take account balance info that is relatively standard in format and present it in the form of financial statements (again, fairly standardized in format) and tax returns (very standardized). The key to efficiency is to standardize procedures and end product as much as possible. Efficiency can also be greatly increased by using the features that promote uniform workflow and engagement management. Because there are no third-party imposed standards and very little written about “best practices” in this area, every firm has a different approach to actually performing the financial statement/tax return engagement. Accordingly, vendors provide flexible tools to accommodate the different approaches firms take, but it is important that firm’s look for ways to standardize engagement and process management whenever possible.
The following five elements of workpaper/trial balance applications have been considered in this review:
Ease of Use — In the context of a workpaper application, ease of use is a very relative term. The work process of performing a financial or business tax engagement is complex. Many steps, a lot of information, and multiple team members are involved in the process. The tools required to perform these types of services in an electronic environment require planning, training and constant review in order to be used in an effective and efficient manner.
Data Import/Export/Integration — Using detailed information from a client’s system is a requirement of every financial statement and tax preparation engagement. If it is easy to do, pulling the data electronically costs a lot less in resources than having it manually keyed. Additionally, a package’s features for using this information with other applications, either through an export process or by directly linking to other systems, has a lot of value.
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