Thomson Reuters - Trial Balance CS - CPA Practice Advisor

From the August 2009 Review of Engagement
& Trial Balance Systems

This
product offering from Thomson Reuters is a component of its sister product,
Engagement CS (reviewed at www.CPATechAdvisor.com/go/2469),
but is also offered as a standalone product. The primary function of this application
is to control the trial balance function of an engagement.

Set Up & Implementation:
This is a client/server application that requires the firm to install the product
on its internal server and on each desktop/laptop that will be using the application.
No significant additional IT costs are required to complete the installation.
Thomson has done a good job of making this product very easy to use. It is quite
intuitive, and it takes little time for a new user to become efficient in its
use.

Integration with Other Tax & Accounting Products:
Trial Balance CS allows users to import trial balance information from virtually
all accounting system on the market. As long as an accounting system can export
the trial balance into a spreadsheet format, Trial Balance CS allows for its
import. There is a separate utility for importing QuickBooks trial balance data.
It allows users to set up preferences in the application as well as set up a
secure data transaction process between Trial Balance CS and QuickBooks, and
I found it very easy to use.

After each trial balance import, Trial Balance CS provides the user with a
diagnostic that will report any irregularities or differences noted in the import
process. Once the trial balance is imported into Trial Balance CS, an easy-to-use
mapping process makes sure your financial statement groupings are accurate.

Trial Balance CS also integrates with many of the leading tax preparation
products. Easy integration is done with Ultra Tax CS, GoSystem Tax, ProSystem
fx Tax, ProSeries Tax and Lacerte. In addition to the previously mentioned
tax and accounting products, Trial Balance CS also obviously offers integration
with Thomson Reuters’ other suite products, including Write-Up CS and
FileCabinet CS.

Integration with Office Productivity Applications:
There is no direct integration with MS Office products, but Trial Balance CS
allows the user to create documents in MS Office formats that can then be edited
in those programs.

Workflow & Engagement Management:
Trial Balance CS is best at workflow. Once the trial balance is loaded and the
groupings are complete, adjusting journal entries are very easy to add. The
product allows the user to split the screen into two sections: trial balance
and adjusting journal entry. This makes entering adjustments much easier than
before. The trial balance is updated automatically as the journal entry is entered.

Another nice feature about Trial Balance CS is the ability to customize the
views of the trial balance. This is very handy during different phases of the
engagement. The product also comes with many standard reports that can be used
over and over again. If the product does not have a report you want, it has
the flexible to allow you to create a customized report to meet your needs.

Relative Value:
Trial Balance CS is very good product priced at $600 for a non-network license
with annual upgrades priced at $1,600. Thomson Reuters has done a nice job improving
this product over the years. It is easy to use, and it completes the tasks necessary
to get the engagement done. If your firm is using other CS products, I highly
recommend that you take a look at this product because there are tremendous
opportunities to leverage the integration features of this product and the other
CS suite of products.

2009 OVERALL RATING: