Engagement letters software

Engagement letters software

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We use the ICAEW engagement letters. We’ve tailored these to the practice, but it still takes a huge amount of time to tailor each one for specific clients eg Sch B8 VAT – do we prepare or just review? Are there Intrastat/EC Sales? Is it monthly/quarterly/annual? What are the period ends? And there’s loads more – and that’s just the VAT schedule. For a client for whom we do payroll and tax credits as well as VAT and accounts and tax returns it can take up to an hour by the time we’ve gone through the lot. Ideally we’d like a piece of software where we can tick VAT – yes which opens a box asking monthly/quarterly etc, we select the appropriate and so on. So a few ticks and the odd date – then the software puts together the whole letter and all the relevant schedules.

Is there such a piece of software? If not, how does everyone else get round this time consuming activity?

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By RussellD
19th Mar 2012 11:00

Excel guru

I am certain an excel guru could automate that process for you.  (and probably file the completed letter in the appropriate folder in a pdf format at the same time)

In my BNI group there was a highly competent excel specialist and I am fairly certain he could do something like that.

http://www.simplyspreadsheets.co.uk

Hope that helps

 

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By paul.k2
19th Mar 2012 19:26

Word maybe

I no longer think of Word as a word Processor, but as a development environment. I have never seen an engagement letter so I might be underetimating what is involved.

For another firm of accounatnts we produced a set of standard letters linked directly to their billing system. As they opened the template, the user was asked a number of standard questions and we populated the letter for them. It made a significant difference to their overall efficiency.

In another organisation, a planning department, we setup a number of standard paragraphs and the user simply called up the ones they needed. If you have variable data within the paragraphs, you might be able to create something like a book mark that prompts for the variable information.

Hopefully this might give you a few pointers.

Paul Kelly

www.kellysolutions.co.uk

 

 

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Man of Kent
By Kent accountant
19th Mar 2012 23:49

Over complicated?

Hi Kevin

I use one standard/generic engagement letter with three appendices (all three don't apply all of the time).

I also send out a letter which accompanies the engagement letter which sets out in specific terms exactly what work I will be undertaking for the client.

This works for me.

 

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By Merrygirl
24th Apr 2012 09:52

Engagement letter software

We are reviewing what we do and have the same issues as you. The CCH Engagement Letter toolkit does what you want and is about £200 a year plus VAT, but I am researching alternatives. We are keen to make sure we keep up with institute guidelines for wording and clauses. However you do it, the whole process seems disproportionately time-consuming.

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Replying to DJKL:
Morph
By kevinringer
23rd May 2012 15:38

@Merrygirl

Did you review reach a conclusion? Did you go for the CCH toolkit?

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Replying to Harrison88:
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By Merrygirl
23rd May 2012 15:54

Engagement letters software

We are always on the lookout for whats new and streamlines our process, but we found the CCH toolkit a little unwieldy and decided not to renew. A manual we bought recently from SWAT UK has all sorts of template documents attached and the engagement letters look more or less like the ones we spent hours compiling. I think its still a cut and paste job however you approach it. 

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