Generating an engagement's working papers
How Achekam generates working papers from the firm's methodology, which facts a person confirms, who approves the profile and why a dry run comes first.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Accountants & audit firms in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
Most audit files are not built; they are inherited. Last year's file is copied forward, papers for areas that no longer exist are left in "for completeness", and a new risk the client took on during the year has no paper at all because nobody added one. The file looks full. Whether it fits this year's engagement is another matter. ACCA's article on audit working papers explains how auditors should prepare and organise them, and why documenting every matter is neither necessary nor practicable.
Generating working papers from a methodology is meant to turn that around: start from what the engagement actually is, decide which papers that calls for, and create those. Achekam does this in a deliberate sequence with people at each decision point. This article walks through it, from the facts Achekam reads to the control centre the team works in afterwards.
Step one: the engagement's facts
Under Audit & Assurance, Generate Working Papers, Achekam starts by reading the engagement's facts. These are the characteristics that decide which papers the methodology calls for.
Where AI is available, it can suggest facts as well. Each AI suggestion is accepted one by one by a person, never in bulk, so the team sees each proposed fact before it shapes the file.
Step two: a person confirms what cannot be read
Some facts cannot be read, and a person confirms them. Think of the kind of thing that is often not recorded anywhere: whether the client started a new line of business, whether there is a group structure the firm has not captured, whether the engagement letter added an extra deliverable.
This step is where experienced judgement enters. A manager who knows the client is better placed than any system to say "yes, they now hold inventory at a third-party warehouse", and that single confirmation may add papers that last year's file never had.
Step three: another person approves the profile
The facts together form the engagement's profile, and another person approves it. The preparer of the profile does not approve it.
A sole practitioner has no second person, so a sole practitioner may approve their own profile with a written attestation. Make that attestation specific: say what was considered, not just that it was.
Step four: a dry run before anything is created
Before any working paper is created, a dry run shows which papers will be created. Nothing is written to the file at this stage.
Read the dry run as a reviewer would. Are there papers for every significant risk the team has identified? Are there papers that make no sense for this client, which suggests a fact is wrong? It is far easier to correct the profile now than to delete or mark as not applicable a stack of papers after the team has started working in them.
Where the papers come from
The papers are generated from methodology and templates. A firm's partners keep their own methodology and working-paper templates under Audit & Assurance, Methodology Library and Working Paper Templates, beside Achekam's platform methodology, which the firm can adopt. A template version is published only by someone other than its author, so no single person can change the firm's standard papers alone.
Achekam also ships working-paper template packs written in its own words. They cover audit areas, the ISA for LCE, ISRE 2400 and ISRE 2410 reviews, ISRS 4400 and ISRS 4410 engagements, ISAE 3000, B-BBEE, public sector work, internal audit and forensic work, and Nigerian and Kenyan statutory and tax packs. The catalogue is marked as unapproved platform content until the firm adopts it, and the firm then approves what it adopts. Check the library in your own workspace to see which packs are present before planning around one.
Adopting a pack is a methodology decision, not an IT task. Whoever adopts it on the firm's behalf should be able to say that it fits the firm's approach to the standards concerned.
| Decision | Who makes it |
|---|---|
| Accepting an AI-suggested fact | A person, one suggestion at a time |
| Confirming facts Achekam cannot read | A person on the engagement team |
| Approving the engagement profile | Another person; a sole practitioner with a written attestation |
| Deciding to create the papers | After the dry run has been read |
| Publishing a new template version | Someone other than its author |
| Adopting a platform template pack | The firm, which then approves it |
The control centre that follows
Once the papers exist, the team works in the Working Paper Control Centre. It shows the file as an index with progress by status, and the same papers can be grouped by preparer, reviewer, risk or statement line. Every count comes from the server, so a manager looking at "papers awaiting review" sees the same number as the partner.
Two menu shortcuts open views of the same control centre: Lead Schedules opens the statement-line view, and Review Notes the reviewer view. How papers then move from preparation to lock is described in working paper review stages and review notes, and how figures reach them in workbooks and lead schedules from the trial balance.
A practical order of work
- Finish planning enough to know the significant risks before generating.
- Let Achekam read the engagement's facts, and accept AI suggestions only after reading each one.
- Confirm the facts that cannot be read, with the client's changes during the year in mind.
- Have a second person approve the profile.
- Read the dry run against the risk assessment.
- Create the papers and assign preparers in the control centre.
A good first test
Generate the papers for one engagement you know well and compare the dry run with last year's inherited file. The differences, papers you no longer need and papers you never had, are the best argument for, or against, adopting the approach across the firm.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
