Rising up to AR-C 70?

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#1
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I do not issue financial statements beyond Prepared per SSARS 21 AR-C 70. That said, many of my clients utilize QBO and they can look at financials whenever they wish, and only engage me to prepare financials to provide a bit more "credibility" to them.

I am engaging a new client where for cost savings, my Firm will be doing all bookkeeping/accounting via Quickbooks Desktop on our server. Client will not have access, but they need a monthly income statement and balance sheet. This has always driven me nuts in identifying if it rises up to AR-C 70 standards under the following criteria:

-Firm performs all bookkeeping/accounting functions (G/L transactions) within QBD
-Firm holds the license to the accounting software
-Firm owns the server and client has no access
-Firm wishes to automatically distribute standard QBD financial statements via e-mail on a monthly basis
-Firm has not been specifically requested to provide Prepared Financials, just automated I/S and B/S

In your opinion, does this rise up to AR-C 70 Prepared Financials? I'll waive the fee I would normally charge but I would prefer to avoid the required engagement letter and having to modify the reports a bit. I read over modifications to SSARS 21, particularly relating to AR-C 70, and the Appendix about Preparation vs Assistance (so friggin' vague), and my gut "professional judgment" says this still rises up to an AR-C 70 engagement. What do you think?
 

#2
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Unfortunately, I think it does.
I also really appreciate QBO for this reason.
Is it prohibitive to put them on QBO?
~Captcook
 

#3
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CaptCook wrote:Unfortunately, I think it does.
I also really appreciate QBO for this reason.
Is it prohibitive to put them on QBO?


It's more of a charity situation (I'm charging far less than I would a for-profit; I don't give back to communities that treat me well as much as I want) so I would end up having to cover the cost and then do QBD for payroll (not using QBO for it).

Your thought is we could then have saved reports and create a log-in for someone to pull them each month, therefore bypassing them being distributed by my Firm.

Or, I could just do AR-C 70 Engagement and create memorized reports with required language in standard QBD format, and I control how they are distributed. Not opposed to this approach as long as I do not need to reformat the financials (which is what I do with other clients because I hate the formatting of QB reports).
 

#4
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CornerstoneCPA wrote:It's more of a charity situation (I'm charging far less than I would a for-profit; I don't give back to communities that treat me well as much as I want) so I would end up having to cover the cost and then do QBD for payroll (not using QBO for it).


That's a solid reason not to be on QBO, but I thought I'd ask.

CornerstoneCPA wrote:Your thought is we could then have saved reports and create a log-in for someone to pull them each month, therefore bypassing them being distributed by my Firm.

Exactly

CornerstoneCPA wrote:Or, I could just do AR-C 70 Engagement and create memorized reports with required language in standard QBD format, and I control how they are distributed. Not opposed to this approach as long as I do not need to reformat the financials (which is what I do with other clients because I hate the formatting of QB reports).

That's how I do this for the one client I have with this arrangement.
~Captcook
 


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