Tailoring the audit file to the client: How MacAudit and Advisory Limited cut review time with Caseware Cloud Audit

A sole practitioner boosts year-two audit efficiency and strengthens quality control with Caseware Cloud Audit.

Key Highlights:

• MacAudit and Advisory Limited ran into issues with the roll forward process on its MyWorkpapers software and struggled to tailor audit procedures to individual clients.

• Having used Caseware at a previous firm, MacAudit’s  sole practitioner moved to Caseware Cloud Audit and invested time upfront building out the permanent and planning files properly.

• By year two, review time on permanent sections and planning had dropped, fieldwork time was down, and Caseware's over-auditing alerts gave the firm an added layer of assurance.

"There is a level of reassurance that nothing is being missed, and Caseware will also highlight instances of over-auditing, which is great." Fiona MacNamara FCCA, Chartered Certified Accountant & Registered Auditor, MacAudit and Advisory Limited

Company Profile

MacAudit and Advisory Limited is a sole practice led by Fiona MacNamara FCCA, a Chartered Certified Accountant and Registered Auditor. Fiona works independently, managing every stage of the audit file from planning through to completion. The firm runs a single Caseware Cloud Audit user alongside accounts production and has been using Cloud Audit since January 2025.

Challenge

Before moving to Caseware, Fiona was using MyWorkpapers to manage audit engagements. While the system worked reasonably well, two issues kept coming up year after year: rolling files forward into a new year was clunky, and tailoring audit procedures to each individual client wasn't straightforward.

For a practitioner managing a varied client base alone, these issues were more than minor irritations — they meant extra manual work at exactly the points in the audit cycle where efficiency matters most.

Solution

Caseware wasn't a new name for Fiona. She had used Caseware at a previous firm and had already seen its benefits first-hand. That experience deepened further while she was working as a technical consultant with Moore Ireland, where the firm introduced Caseware Cloud Audit. Seeing it in action there, Fiona liked what the product offered and could see the benefits it would bring to her own practice.

"I particularly liked how the file can be tailored to each entity, with the ability to add and remove procedures as necessary for the entity under review," Fiona explained. That flexibility — building an audit file around the actual risks of each client rather than a one-size-fits-all template — was the deciding factor in choosing Caseware Cloud Audit.

Onboarding was straightforward from the outset. MacAudit’s Caseware Account Manager provided all the information needed to confirm Caseware was the right fit for the firm, followed by a one-to-one session with a Caseware expert to set up the files. The training that followed was, in Fiona's words, excellent.

Knowing that the real benefits of Caseware come once the groundwork is in place, Fiona made a deliberate decision to invest time properly in year one. Setting up the permanent and planning files for each client took time initially, but it was time spent with a clear purpose.

Results

That investment paid off. Now in the second year of using Caseware Cloud Audit, Fiona is seeing the benefits play out across every stage of the file:

• Time spent reviewing permanent sections and completing planning has fallen significantly compared with year one.

• Fieldwork time has also been reduced, now that files are properly tailored to each client.

• Caseware's ability to flag over-auditing gives added confidence that procedures are proportionate to risk.

• Working in the cloud means files can be accessed and progressed from anywhere, a valuable flexibility for a practitioner working alone and often away from the office.

"The benefits are the removal of duplication, the time saved once a file is set up properly, the tailoring of each file ensuring the audit focuses on the risks identified, and the avoidance of over-auditing," Fiona said.

The advantages extend beyond Fiona's own files, too. Reviewing files prepared by other audit firms has offered a useful comparison point: "From a reviewer's point of view, Caseware is easy to follow, and both partners and external reviewers will find time savings in reviewing the files."

The Future

For firms weighing up a move to Caseware Cloud Audit, Fiona's advice is simple: take advantage of the training on offer and give proper time to both training and setting up each file from the start.

"The upfront cost and time is worth it in year two onwards," Fiona said — a lesson learned firsthand, and one that continues to pay dividends with every audit cycle that follows.

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