How Data Integrations Boost Your Engagement Efficiency and Quality 

Data integration between accounting solutions doesn’t seem as exciting as advanced technologies such as automation and artificial intelligence, but its role in improving the quality of our work and allowing us to be more efficient is crucial. The ability to move data seamlessly from one program to another not only saves us time, but also reduces the risk of errors. It’s integral to producing accurate financial reporting.

For instance, let’s imagine you need to extract data from your client’s bookkeeping system into your engagement solution. Once you’ve accomplished that, you need to extract the balances from the engagement software to prepare your client’s tax return. Finally, at the engagement’s conclusion, you need to send any adjustments back to your client’s bookkeeping system. 

That’s a lot of data transferring, which consumes your team’s time and creates risk at each transfer point, leading to potentially more errors further along in the engagement.

Manual entry is a time-waster

When I began my accounting career, data imports were not available in our engagement tool. We manually keyed in all the data from the client’s trial balance. In my first five years, I can recall the trial balance balancing to zero the first time I entered it only five times. Every other time, I had to manually verify each number until I reached a zero balance. Even though I was the most junior staff member at the firm, it was not an efficient use of my time.  However, once the data was inputted correctly, the data would flow into the lead schedules and financial statements.

Another firm I worked at had built its own engagement tool. Here I manually created lead schedules in Excel from the trial balance and then manually built financial statements in Word. To me there was a disconnect between the trial balance, lead schedules and financial statements as a result of the separate manual processes. 

I questioned how we could be confident the numbers in the financial statement were actually the numbers we audited and in turn if those numbers were actually the numbers in the client’s records (its trial balance).  As a result, I had my team members manually agree each number in the trial balance to the lead schedules, and the lead schedules to the financial statements, next I would manually double check their work.  Once again, this was a highly inefficient process. 

The power of integration

Today, engagement solutions like the Caseware Engagement Suite allow you to automatically update all your numbers, including adjustments, after the trial balance has been entered.  You enter your data once and it populates across lead schedules, financial analysis, supporting working papers, financial statements and relevant tax codes. This single source of data minimizes the risk of mistakes from manual data entry, such as missing numbers or transposition errors.

Another way to limit manual data entry is to integrate bookkeeping software with your engagement solution, allowing you to import data directly into your client’s trial balance or general ledger. At Caseware, for example, we support integrations from Xero as well as other accounting packages, Excel and CSV formats. 

Engagement solutions also include export capabilities, allowing you to export adjustments back into your client’s bookkeeping software or export a General Index of Financial Information (GIFI) that you can import into your preferred tax preparation software. This saves you more time and improves the accuracy of your information.

The path to more efficient engagements

Cloud-based engagement solutions, like the ones supported by the Caseware Platform, allow firms to:

• communicate more easily and securely with their clients
• improve team collaboration by enabling team members to work on documents simultaneously 
• deliver an intelligent, guided workflow that improves audit efficiency and quality. 

By combining the power of our cloud-based engagement solutions and our integrations with other vendors’ accounting software, we improve your data workflow, allowing you to unlock greater efficiencies and reduce manual errors.  

Learn more about how to improve your data integration and workflow with the Caseware Platform and the Caseware Engagement Suite.