CPA Practice Advisor

FEB 2012

Today's Technology for Tomorrow's Firm.

Issue link: https://cpapracticeadvisor.epubxp.com/i/53322

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 12 of 30

Thomson Reuters – Engagement CS 2012 OVERALL RATING BEST FIT Small to medium sized accounting fi rms with a focus on audit engagements, espe- cially those currently relying on PPC Practice Aids for guidance. STRENGTHS • Strong integration with PPC Practice Aids and other T omson Reuters prod- ucts • Ability to manage engagement without network connectivity • Available as a fully hosted solution POTENTIAL LIMITATIONS • Full integration experience requires separate licensing of CS Professional Suite products Engagement CS helps complete the accounting off erings within the CS Profes- sional Suite product lineup. Engagement CS provides tools to enhance tax, audit and other accounting related engagements within a paperless workfl ow system. With strong integration features with PPC Practice Aids and the popular Microsoſt Offi ce products, Engagement CS provides a strong solution for small to medium size accounting practices. BASIC SYSTEM FUNCTIONS T e interface of Engagement CS is gener- ally composed of a three pane layout. T e engagement navigation structure is on the leſt side of the screen, all currently opened docu- ments are on the right side of the screen and various notes and user information are housed on the bot om of the screen. T e dividers between each of these panes may be adjusted to provide more space as necessary and to fi t any size monitor or screen resolution. Above the three panes layout sits a traditional drop down menu navigation structure accompa- nied by a row of various shortcut icons. Trial Balance CS, which has been reviewed separately, is included with the license cost and provides the trial balance functions for Engagement CS. Trial Balance CS is custom- izable in nearly all aspects of the soſt ware. From trial balance views to reports to fi nancial statements, users have the ability to specifi - cally tailor these to each client fi le. A recently added feature within Engagement CS allows multiple staff members to simultaneously view the trial balance while others are making adjustments. T is keeps all the underlying data in "real time" at all phases of the engage- ment and removes the necessity to sync data between users. Engagements may be setup from prefor- matted templates included with the Engagement CS installation or users may create their own templates based on various fi rm or client specifi c needs. Tight integration exists with Microsoſt Word and Excel prod- ucts and both products receive a custom add-in toolbar to quickly exchange data with Engagement CS. Once users create templates, they may be shared with other engagements as well as saved for future engagements. ENGAGEMENT MANAGEMENT Engagement CS provides advanced user management features to control access and capabilities of each user login. Upon opening Engagement CS, users are required to login and based on their login credentials the program will automatically limit each user as necessary. Users may also be controlled on a per-engagement basis as well, which overrides the global user permission rights. T is allows users to be granted limited or full access to individual fi les within a particular engage- ment, for instance. As mentioned above, the interface gener- ally rests within a three pane design, with engagement navigation on the right portion of the screen. Engagement navigation is done through a folder tree structure similar to Windows Explorer and is equally as custom- izable. T is design should provide users a high comfort level in navigating through engage- ments. Files may be imported into the folder tree structure through menu options that allow users to import the fi les or through simple drag-and-drop. Engagement CS also has a scanning module included and allows documents to be directly scanned into the engagement. Regardless of method, upon import users are allowed to assign document name, workpaper reference and folder loca- tion as well as any user specific access restrictions. Document sign-off is easily accomplished within Engagement CS. Users may sign-off on documents individually or through mul- tiple documents at one time. Engagement CS allows up to fi ve levels of sign-off to be setup with each engagement. Document sign off activity is also displayed and is available in the engagement folder tree pane. Here, users may easily see which documents have been signed off , which user performed that task and when that document sign-off occurred. All documents housed within Engagement CS are automatically tracked through audit controls. In the bot om window pane, users may easily see the activity within each docu- ment. T is activity window indicates which users accessed a particular fi le and when. When a fi le has been altered aſt er being signed off or reviewed, it converts to red as a warning that something has changed. Based on user permissions, users may accept or reject the new changes before fi nalizing the engagement. WORKFLOW & COLLABORATION Engagement CS allows multiple users simultaneous access to each engagement. One feature unique to Engagement CS is the ability to take the engagement "offl ine" and still be accessed by multiple users. Users that are performing audit work outside of the offi ce may setup a peer-to-peer network utilizing Colligo technologies included within the soſt ware. T is allows the engagement fi le to be checked out by a user and then shared with other users in the fi eld. All engagement fi les used in the fi eld retain all initial user security and permission set ings and the engagement fi le works the same as if a user was connected to the offi ce network. Upon returning to the offi ce, the fi le is simply checked back in or synched with the network. When only a few users are performing audit work in the fi eld and additional staff remains in the offi ce, pieces of the engagement may be forwarded to users. Users may be forwarded portions of the engagement through USB drive or via email. Again, all user permissions are retained as if the user was on the offi ce network. Binders can be locked down when checked out in order to prevent data conflicts. At this point, a user with administrative rights must intervene and determine which information needs to be imported and if additional changes are neces- sary. All documents housed within Engagement CS retain their original fi le format, which allows users to perform any necessary edits within the native soſt ware. Engagement CS does, however, have the ability to read most fi les within the soſt ware. For the fi les that Engagement CS recognizes, users may pre- view the document in the rightmost window pane and add notes to the fi les as necessary without fully editing the fi les. All notes added to documents are tracked automatically through the audit trail history and may be viewed in the bot om window pane at any time. Engagement CS also has a built-in PDF editor to perform many popular edits to scanned documents. T is, in turn may reduce the need for full PDF editing soſt ware to be installed on each user's computer. When an engagement is complete, Engagement CS allows users to run fi nal audit check reports that display any potential errors, such as documents that have not been signed off . Aſt er determining that the engagement is fi nal, Engagement CS converts all fi les to read only and prevents any additional changes from occurring. T e entire engagement folder tree and all documents housed within Engage- ment CS may then be exported as a book- marked PDF and saved as an archive copy or forwarded to a third-party fi rm for peer review purposes. INTEGRATION/IMPORT/EXPORT Since Engagement CS is part of the T omson Reuters CS Professional Suite, it integrates directly with other products within this lineup. An obvious integration exists with Trial Balance CS which is included in the license cost and is the backbone of the fi nancial data within Engagement CS. Perhaps the next biggest integration occurs with the PPC and Checkpoint research product lineups. Available through separate licensing, these research products are heavily relied upon within the accounting and auditing profession. All PPC documents imported into an engagement fi le may be rolled forward with lit le eff ort by the user. All core data is retained and any sign-off fi elds and other notes manu- ally entered are automatically removed upon rolling an engagement forward to a subse- quent year. Any changes to the core of the fi le, such as additional procedures or updated text are automatically imported based on the subscription level of PPC. Engagement CS also off ers tight integra- tion with the Microsoſt Offi ce product lineup and Adobe Acrobat. Add-in menus are pro- vided for Microsoſt Word, Excel and Outlook and provide quick access to document sign-off procedures and any underlying fi nancial data when building fi nancial statements. Users may also run several functions natively within CONTINUED ON PAGE 15 February 2012 • www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com 13

Articles in this issue

Links on this page

Archives of this issue

view archives of CPA Practice Advisor - FEB 2012