Perform the acceptance and continuance

Most of the engagement work in Caseware ReviewComp is completed via checklists. To perform engagement acceptance procedures, complete the 000-Optimiser checklist.

The 000-Optimiser consists of a set of questions designed to determine the scope and nature of your engagement. As you provide responses, further documents are added to the engagement.

For example, if you've specified that the engagement type is a Review, then the following documents are available in the Documents page for client acceptance/continuance:

A-125 Acceptance, a checklist confirming whether the engagement should be accepted, covering scope, applicable financial reporting framework, integrity of management, ethical requirements, and quality management.
A-130 Engagement Letter, a letter to be completed and given to your client to sign. The draft is automatically generated based on your responses in the A-125 Acceptance checklist and your firm's Cloud profile.
A-130Q Engagement Letter - Query, where your client will upload their signed copy of the engagement letter.

If this is a new engagement where the prior period financial statements were performed by a predecessor practitioner, the following additional documents are also available:

A-150 Client Authorisation Letter, a letter to be signed by the client authorising the predecessor practitioner to share information with your firm.
A-150Q Client Authorisation Letter - Query, where your client will upload their signed copy of the authorisation letter.
A-160 Predecessor Accounting Firm Letter, a letter to the predecessor practitioner requesting information relevant to your engagement, including matters relating to management integrity, significant findings, going concern, and access to prior working papers.

You can view a list of the current documents in the engagement by selecting the folder icon (). A panel opens on the right side showing the available documents grouped by phase. You can also select a document to open it. Once you open a document, you can pin it for quick access using the pin icon ().

To sign off on the Engagement Setup document, select Sign Off at the top-right corner of the document and choose the applicable role for your signoff. To learn more, see Manage the engagement documents.

Note that you can change the signoff workflow for the document and create custom signoff roles if needed. To learn more, see Define signoff roles and Set up signoff schemes.

To learn more about checklist documents, see Add a checklist.

Notify the document's reviewer

To notify the staff member acting as the reviewer that the engagement acceptance document is ready for review, create an issue and assign it to them.

To add an issue:

With the document open, select the Issue icon ().
Enter a message for the staff member.
Tip: You can also tag a member by entering (@) followed by the member name. If they have access to the document, their name appears in the Quick List dialog.
Select their name to tag them in the issue's description.
Choose the issue type and select Create Issue.
The issue displays in the document. It also displays in the Issues page or on the Documents page.

Once all roles sign off on a document, the green check mark displays next to the document () on the Documents page. The progress indicator for the Planning phase is also updated.

Review and edit the engagement letter

The draft version of your engagement letter is automatically generated based on your responses in the 000-Optimiser, as well as your firm's Cloud profile.

Notes and guidance information are available in the letter at the section marked with a lightbulb icon (). This section is visible by default but it's excluded when you print the letter. You can hide this section by selecting More Actions () | Guidance | Off or More Actions () | Guidance | Collapsed.

To edit the letter content, select Edit (). See Edit the engagement letter for more details.

Once you're satisfied with the contents of the engagement letter, select Sign Off to perform the appropriate sign off. Once the content is reviewed, you can send a copy to your client.

Send the engagement letter to client contacts for review and signature

To obtain the client signature, you can send your draft directly to clients using query documents in Caseware ReviewComp. Query documents are intended for client collaboration, such as:

Requesting information from clients (send inquires).
Requesting documents (ask the client to upload one or more files).
Sending deliverables to the client to sign and return.

Note: Simple Electronic Signature is available in select queries. Clients can electronically accept the engagement letter and other documents. To learn more, see Simple Electronic Signature response type in queries.

Once client contacts sign in to Cloud, they can directly respond to queries.

To send the engagement letter to your clients:

Open the A-130Q Engagement letter document.
In the top-right corner of the document, select SEND.
The Open Query dialog opens.
Select a Query Due Date.
Specify the contacts assigned to the engagement (or simply assign it to all contacts associated with the entity)
Enter an appropriate email message.
Select OK.
Contacts receive an email with your message and a link to the engagement, where they can download a PDF version of the letter, sign and upload the signed copy.

To learn more about the staff-contact collaboration workflow, see Staff-contact collaboration (Queries).