Wolters Kluwer Introduces CCH Axcess Knowledge Coach for Tighter Auditor Collaboration

Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting has launched CCH Axcess Knowledge Coach as the first audit module in its award-winning CCH Axcess cloud-based tax preparation, compliance and workflow management platform. Built based on the award-winning and peer reviewed CCH ProSystem fx Knowledge Coach software, this new innovative cloud-based solution gives auditors the flexibility of anywhere, anytime access, facilitates collaboration across audit engagements, and improves overall audit quality.

“We are seeing disruptive change in the industry and it’s forcing firms to re-evaluate their processes and tools to ensure compliance with changing regulations. New technologies are changing the way auditors collaborate on projects and how firms engage with clients, who now expect them to provide higher value advisory services,” said Jason Marx, CEO of Wolters Kluwer Tax and Accounting North America. “All of this creates an opportunity for firms to adapt and transform the services they provide so they can deliver the higher quality services the clients seek and enhance the profitability of their firm.”

CCH Axcess Knowledge Coach tailors the audit based on the characteristics of the firm and the engagement, directly links identified risks with audit steps, flows information throughout the workpapers where needed, and monitors the engagement for completeness and compliance —all while allowing the auditor to exercise professional judgment. Offering real-time contextual-based diagnostics, notifications, and updates, this solution provides auditors with knowledge-based guidance and the tools they need to deliver a truly complete, thorough, and compliant audit.

“CCH Axcess Knowledge Coach includes great improvements, and it’s definitely a huge step into the future of our audits. Thanks to it being cloud-based, our test group experienced drastic time savings, which made us so much more efficient,” said Nvard Rose Simonyan, Assurance Senior Associate at CohnReznick, LLP.

“Overall, we’ve received positive feedback from our test group regarding working with CCH Axcess Knowledge Coach. Specifically, everyone really likes the increase in speed, the ability to work seamlessly as a team on the same documents, and also being able to open the same documents on multiple screens while being in different parts of a form,” added Mona Dickerson, National Assurance Director at CohnReznick LLP.

Firms now have the flexibility in how audits are managed by creating recommended audit procedures for all audit types and using tailoring questions to identify complexity. Launching with commercial titles first, CCH Axcess Knowledge Coach will include all industry titles in the coming months.

“A disengaged audit process negatively impacts overall quality, but many audit methodologies and systems in place today discourage critical thinking because they are built on standardized checklists and inflexible processes that fail to leverage auditor knowledge,” said Cathy Rowe, CPA, CA and Director of Accounting and Audit Product Management at Wolters Kluwer Tax and Accounting North America. “This solution is the next building block in our Integrated Audit Approach, which is helping auditors realize the full benefits of the Knowledge-Based Audit Methodology, a dynamic risk-based auditing process developed specifically in response to the AICPA’s risk assessment standards.”

Wolters Kluwer Integrated Audit Approach focuses the audit process on auditor judgment. It facilitates the ability to make informed decisions by ensuring that the audit is tailored for each client, always having a link to the assessed risk and the work performed. By focusing on the entire end-to-end workflow, this approach helps firms maximize efficiencies and guide them to a higher quality audit without over or under auditing. It combines the powerful content-driven tools of CCH Axcess Knowledge Coach, the efficiency of CCH ProSystem fx Engagement, CCH Audit Accelerator and TeamMate Analytics, plus the comprehensive content of CCH Accounting Research Manager and CCH Axcess Financial Prep, the first dynamic cloud-based trial balance solution integrated with CCH Axcess.