Capital Confirmation

The product brief appeared with the July 2010 Review of Trial
Balance and Engagement Management Systems.

Confirming asset, debt, and receivables accounts during an audit has always
been a process that was prone to long delays and fraud. After waiting weeks
or even months for an official statement of account, there was often little
real assurance that the appropriate authority had signed off on that statement.
And this uncertainty could cause doubt in the audit process as a whole. After
all, financial scandals such as Parmalat were based on fraudulent confirmations.

Fortunately, technology has caught up with the confirmation process, and Capital
Confirmation’s Confirmation.com service provides verifiable confirmations
in an average of less than two days. Whether an auditor, a business being audited
or a financial organization officer, the Confirmation.com In-Network system
uses a secure web-based platform to manage confirmation requests, with only
registered and recognized users allowed to provide signoffs.

The system undergoes a SAS 70 Type II audit and a SysTrust Certification every
6 months, and Capital Confirmation guarantees the auditor is communicating with
an authenticated bank and that an authorized official was the responder to confirmation
requests. As an added benefit, the web-based system eliminates the time-consuming
paper-based process, better protects client data and reduces data errors.

The system integrates with the major engagement systems and is used by all
10 of the 10 largest banks in the United States and more than 7,000 tax and
accounting firms. It received one of The CPA Technology Advisor’s Tax
& Accounting Technology Innovation Awards in 2009 and is endorsed by the
AICPA/CPA2Biz.

Thomson Reuters — PPC’s Smart Audit Suite
http://ppc.thomsonreuters.com

The product brief appeared with the July 2010 Review of Trial
Balance and Engagement Management Systems.

Thomson Reuters maintains the PPC brand as the center for its knowledge tools,
including the PPC SMART Audit Suite, a collection of the vendor’s audit-focused
Smart Practice Aids. The Aids are computer-based or online versions of audit
engagement tools that PPC has offered for years in print format. Aids are available
for virtually every type of entity audit, with the core program offering risk
assessment functions and utilities for accessing and documenting internal control
processes.

The PPC Guide to Audit Risk Assessment includes tools for providing detailed
analysis of standards and requirements, communicating this information to clients
with built-in presentations and scripts, and helping auditors understand principles
and best practices for audits. The Disclosure module is the most recent addition
to the Smart Audit Suite, helping audit practices streamline disclosure checklist
processes and helping ensure compliance with all requirements.

Also available as part of the SMART Audit Suite is the Internal Control Practice
Aids, which guides users through a top-down risk-based approach to most efficiently
evaluate controls for financial reporting. The tools help obtain and document
understandings, evaluate system designs, prepare internal control test plans,
and assess control risk. It is fully integrated with the Risk Assessment Aid
to optimize audit engagements.

Technology