CaseWare International Inc. – CaseWare Working Papers

Once the product is properly installed, it is fairly easy to set up and use.
Someone within the firm will need to set up user rights and import information
and data into the product, but this is not a difficult task. The learning curve
is quite short, but I suggest that each firm designate a product champion to
teach the firm how to use the product as desired. CaseWare offers additional
training courses aimed at helping your firm use Working Papers more effectively.

INTEGRATION WITH OTHER TAX & ACCOUNTING PRODUCTS:
As mentioned above, Working Papers is just one of the many products offered
by CaseWare. All of the vendor’s products are designed to integrate with
one another. Once information and data is entered into one CaseWare product,
this information can be integrated and shared with most, if not all, CaseWare
products. Information sharing is quite simple and easy to do. In addition to
integration among CaseWare products, trial balance data can be imported from
most engagement and trial balance products such as ProSystem fx Engagement,
Engagement CS and others. Trial balance data can also be exported to most major
tax products on the market. Firms can also import trial balance and/or detailed
general ledger transactions from most major accounting packages including QuickBooks,
Sage and other vendors. See the company website for a detailed listing of all
import and export integrations.

In addition to sharing accounting data with other applications, Working Papers
allows users to easily integrate with third-party audit and accounting practice
aids. To convert practice aids into a PDF or MS Office format, the user can
attach it to the Document Manager. Practice aids from other vendors work well
with Working Papers, but the user might lose some of the intended functionality
or collaboration of the practice aid.

INTEGRATION WITH OFFICE PRODUCTIVITY APPLICATIONS:
As previously noted, any MS Office file can be attached to the Working Papers
Document Manager. Once the MS Office file is attached to the binder, the user
simply clicks on the file and it opens in the appropriate MS Office application.
Once you are finished editing, simply save the document. This also includes
Outlook items, which allows user to easily move email data to audit documentation.
As well, CaseWare Connector, an add-on to Working Papers, allows users to connect
data between Working Papers to MS Word and Excel documents.

WORKFLOW & ENGAGEMENT MANAGEMENT:
The most impressive workflow feature for Working Papers is the ability to create
financial statements and footnotes with one of the product add-ons. This streamlined
process allows firms to quickly create GAAP and IFRS-compliant financial statements
in a much more efficient manner. Setup of these add-ons requires a little bit
of a time investment in order to make them work properly, but the firms I have
talked to say it is well worth the time and effort.

Working Papers has some nice engagement management features that allow each
user to manage their roles easier. A user can either directly enter the product
and start working or see an overall picture of the engagement by viewing the
“dashboard.” This allows each user to see the status of each engagement,
such as what tasks need to be done, which tasks have been reviewed, what is
the status of the review notes that have been left by the reviewer, which tasks
have not been assigned, etc.

Once the engagement is completed, Working Papers has some nice roll-forward
options. It allows you to determine if you want to overwrite, delete, roll-forward
or update items in the Document Manager. This is a nice option that saves time
at the end of each engagement.

RELATIVE VALUE:
CaseWare Working Papers is a very nice engagement product. The product is set
apart due to its ability to create workflows around the engagement reporting
processes. A firm can achieve significant efficiencies in the reporting phase
of an engagement. A single-user license for CaseWare Working Papers is priced
at $499; a license for up to five users is priced at $1,399; additional users
are added at $260 per user. Licenses renew annually at 50 percent of the license
value.

2009 OVERALL RATING: