Methodology library
Audit programmes, risks and procedures the firm’s methodology admins maintain and every engagement starts from.
Features
What the Workspace Does
Every feature on this page is part of the product today. Data analytics and practice management are separate apps within the workspace, enabled for each firm that subscribes to them.
Audit engagement management
Audits, review engagements and agreed-upon procedures, each with its own team, named partner and manager, and a stage that moves forward only when its checks pass.
- Audit (ISA), review (ISRE 2400 Revised) and agreed-upon procedures (ISRS 4400 Revised) engagements
- Engagement teams with roles, named leads and an engagement quality reviewer where required
- Planning, fieldwork and completion stages with an exit gate at each step
- Roll last year’s file forward, or start an initial engagement
Risk assessment and planning
Understanding of the entity, materiality and scoping feed one risk register, where each risk of material misstatement is assessed and linked to the procedures that respond to it.
- Understanding of the entity and its internal control
- Materiality from a benchmark, with overall and performance materiality
- Scoping of each financial statement area against materiality
- Risk register with assessed levels, significant risks and planned responses
- Accounting estimates (ISA 540) and related parties (ISA 550)
Audit programmes and fieldwork
Programmes drawn from the firm’s methodology library, with procedures recorded against each audit area, evidence attached and sampling built in.
- Audit programmes and checklists from a methodology library the firm can adapt
- Procedures recorded per audit area, with results, exceptions and evidence
- Sampling: sizing, selection (random, systematic, monetary unit or haphazard) and evaluation
- Journal entry testing over the imported general ledger (ISA 240)
Trial balance and lead schedules
Import the trial balance, map it to the chart of accounts and read it under the IAS 1 headings, with lead schedules built from the same final balances.
- Trial balance import with chart-of-accounts mapping
- Statement of profit or loss and financial position headings, derived from the mapping
- Final balances that include audit adjustments
- Lead schedules per audit area on the fieldwork index
Audit data analytics
Import the general ledger, explore every line and run tests over the whole year, with the results filed into the working papers.
- Ledger explorer: filter by account, month, person, source or weekday
- Ledger tests such as possible duplicates, numbering gaps, cut-off and the first-digit (Benford) test
- Trial balance flags against performance materiality
- A finished test filed as a working paper, or sent to sampling
- Possible duplicates
- Gaps in journal numbering
- Cut-off around the year end
- Large journals
- Rare account combinations
- First-digit test (Benford)
- Reversed after the year end
- Just below an approval limit
- Round amounts
- People who seldom post
- Entered out of hours
Audit findings and adjustments
Record adjustments and findings as fieldwork raises them. The trial balance and the completion file read the same records, so nothing is keyed twice.
- Proposed and recorded audit adjustments, posted to the trial balance
- Findings and control deficiencies, raised from a procedure’s exceptions
- Summary of uncorrected misstatements for completion
Financial statement review
Analytical review at planning and again at completion, with the year compared against expectations and each significant movement explained.
- Preliminary analytical review at planning
- Substantive analytical procedures in fieldwork
- Final analytical review over the financial statements at completion
Audit completion and reporting
A completion checklist, the planning and completion reports drafted from the file, partner sign-off and an archive that is kept for the firm’s retention period.
- Completion checklist and communication with those charged with governance
- Planning and completion reports drafted from the file
- Partner and engagement quality reviewer sign-off
- Archive with a retention period during which the file cannot be deleted
Team collaboration and review
Preparer and reviewer sign-offs recorded against the person who gave them, review notes, approvals and client requests through a portal the firm controls.
- Preparer and reviewer sign-off on every working paper, with a full sign-off log
- Review notes assigned within the engagement team
- Client requests (PBC) and a client portal for uploads and messages
- Time recording against the engagement
And more
Around the Engagement
Roll forward
Carry last year’s file forward into the new engagement, module by module.
Engagement backup and restore
Download an engagement, its records and its files, as a zip with a signed manifest, and restore it as a new engagement.
Practice management app
A separate app for the firm’s own business: pipeline, engagement letters, invoices, WIP and people.
Working papers in Word and Excel
Attach Word and Excel papers to a procedure, each save kept as a version. In-browser editing is available where the firm’s deployment has a document server.
Light, dark and monochrome themes
Each person chooses the theme they work in.
Bring Your Audit Workflow Together.
Discover how Audit Workspace can support a more connected approach to audit planning, execution, review and completion.