Keeping the firm's own methodology and templates
How partners keep the firm's own audit methodology and templates beside Achekam's, who may publish a new version, and which template rules apply.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Accountants & audit firms in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
Every firm has a methodology, whether or not it calls it one. It lives in the way the senior partner insists on documenting materiality, in the stock check memo that was improved after a bad year, in the going concern paper nobody is allowed to skip. When that knowledge sits in people's heads and old files, it leaves with them.
Writing it down as the firm's own methodology, with templates that carry it into every engagement, is how a practice makes quality repeatable. Achekam gives the firm a place to do that beside its platform material, and rules about who may change what.
Why a firm needs its own methodology
Generic templates, however good, describe the work in general. A firm's methodology describes how this firm does it: its risk appetite, its sign-off levels, the industries it knows, the mistakes it has learned from.
Quality management standards expect that. A firm that performs audits or reviews has to design and operate a system of quality management, and its methodology is one of the resources that system relies on. IFAC's Quality Management Series for small firm implementation is the first instalment of a three-part series helping small and medium practices implement ISQM 1, ISQM 2 and ISA 220 (Revised).
In Achekam, a firm's partners keep their own methodology and working-paper templates beside the platform methodology, under AUDIT & ASSURANCE > Methodology Library and Working Paper Templates. The platform material can be adopted into the firm's own; it does not become the firm's methodology by default.
Writing or adapting templates
Most firms will not write every template from nothing. A realistic approach mixes three sources:
- Adopted platform packs. Achekam ships working-paper template packs in its own words, covering audit areas, the ISA for LCE, review, agreed-upon procedures and compilation engagements, ISAE 3000 work, B-BBEE, public sector, internal audit, forensic work and Nigerian and Kenyan statutory and tax packs. The catalogue is marked unapproved platform content until the firm adopts it. How to review them is covered in adopting the template packs.
- Adapted versions. A platform template, changed to reflect the firm's policies, such as a tighter sampling approach or an extra step for a sector the firm specialises in.
- The firm's own. Templates for work the packs do not address, or where the firm's approach is distinctive.
Whichever the source, a good template states its objective, the procedures, the evidence expected, and the conclusion required. It should be usable by a trainee without a partner explaining it.
Publishing a version: never by its author
The most important rule in the library is simple: a template version is published only by someone other than its author. A partner can draft a new version of the inventory template, but a colleague must publish it.
That is deliberate. A template is copied into every engagement that uses it. A mistake in one paper affects one file; a mistake in a template affects every file generated from it until someone notices. A second person reading the change before it goes live catches the obvious errors and asks the awkward question: why are we changing this?
For a small firm the rule has a practical consequence: at least two people must be able to work on the methodology. Agree who they are.
The firm's governance record helps here. Record Governance, under QUALITY & GOVERNANCE, keeps a log of changes to governed records showing who did what, when and with what result, which can be filtered and checked for an unbroken chain. Viewing it needs the AUDIT_LOG_VIEW permission, and it covers records under record governance rather than every screen, so check that the records you care about are among them.
Template rules such as no AI drafting
A template can carry rules of its own, and one is especially useful. On a working paper, staff can ask AI to draft a conclusion or a procedure's response, suggest review notes or explain an automated observation, and a draft goes into the file only when a person saves it. A template can forbid AI drafting altogether.
When would a firm use that? Some papers are about judgement the firm wants written by a person in their own words, every time:
| Paper | Why a firm might forbid AI drafting |
|---|---|
| Going concern conclusion | The partner's judgement must be visibly their own |
| Fraud risk discussion | The team's discussion should be recorded as it happened |
| Independence and acceptance | Personal declarations should not be drafted for the person |
| Significant judgements memo | The reasoning must be the engagement team's |
A locked paper refuses drafts in any case, and the AI endpoints write no record by themselves. Without an AI key, the actions refuse and point to Settings.
Updating when standards change
A methodology is never finished. When a standard changes, the firm decides what changes in its templates, drafts new versions, and has them published by someone other than the author.
Then the new versions reach engagements through the normal route. Staff can generate an engagement's working papers from the methodology under AUDIT & ASSURANCE > Generate Working Papers: Achekam reads the engagement's facts, a person confirms what it cannot read, another person approves the profile, and a dry run shows which papers will be created before any are. New engagements generated after publication pick up the new versions. The generation process itself is described in generating working papers.
A simple annual methodology cycle
- Before busy season, list the standards and regulator updates of the past year.
- Decide which templates each one affects.
- Draft the changes; have a second partner publish them.
- Brief the team on what changed and why.
- After busy season, collect the review notes that point to weak templates and feed them into next year's list.
Name the two partners who will own the methodology this year, give them a fixed day each quarter to work on it, and start with the template that produced the most review notes last season.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
