What is workpaper preparation?
Schedules and workpapers prepared to your standard, for your review.
This is a firm-to-firm engagement, not client-facing work: the deliverable is a workpaper file built to your firm's own standard, reviewed and signed by your own licensed staff. That covers lead schedules for each trial-balance grouping, reconciliations referenced down to source documents, roll-forward schedules for continuity accounts, and — for tax-support engagements — return computations reconciled to book-to-tax adjustments. Every schedule is built to tie out before it reaches your reviewer, not after.
The calendar is your calendar, not a generic one. Calendar-year 1120s and 1065s are due March 15, 1040s and 1120-S extensions run to October 15, trust returns (1041) land April 15, and a compilation or review engagement tied to a December year-end usually needs its file substantially complete before the AICPA's SQMS-driven documentation deadlines bite. The January–April compression is when workpaper backlog compounds fastest across every client at once — we build to that stack in advance, so files land staged ahead of review instead of arriving mid-crunch.
Who does what
| Your CapEasy team | Workpaper preparation, the reconciliations and reporting behind it, and the questions list that keeps it honest. |
| Your CPA or enrolled agent | Everything that carries a licence in United States — rendered exactly as written: issue compilation, review or audit reports — those are restricted to licensed cpa firms. |
| You | One conversation with one named person, and the decisions that are genuinely yours. |
Workpaper preparation in United States
Who can sign and file — UAA §14(a) and PTIN/EFIN
The Uniform Accountancy Act restricts compilation, review, and audit reports to licensed CPA firms; a preparer needs an active IRS-issued PTIN to sign a federal return for compensation, and EFIN status to transmit it electronically. Workpaper preparation sits entirely outside that restriction — we build the supporting file, your firm's licensed staff exercises the judgment the license exists for.
Documentation standards under AICPA SQMS No. 1
The AICPA's Statement on Quality Management Standards No. 1 (replacing the older SQCS framework) requires firms to maintain a documented quality-management system, and a peer-review inspection tests whether engagement files actually meet it — thin referencing or missing tie-outs are a recurring peer-review finding. We build to the referencing depth SQMS No. 1 expects, not a minimum that passes on the surface.
IRC §7216 and third-party return information
Section 7216 makes it a federal offense for a tax return preparer to disclose or use a taxpayer's return information without the taxpayer's written consent — a rule that reaches any outside party assisting with preparation, including offshore or third-party workpaper support. Securing that consent is your firm's obligation as the preparer of record; we operate as your engaged service provider under whatever consent and confidentiality terms you've put in place, not as a party negotiating consent independently.
Audit documentation completeness — AU-C 230 / PCAOB AS 1215
GAAS requires an audit file to be assembled within 60 days of the report release date (AU-C 230); PCAOB AS 1215 sets a tighter 45-day window for issuer audits, and anything added after that has to be documented with what changed, who added it, and why. We build audit-support schedules to be complete before archive, not patched afterward against a deadline that penalizes late additions.
What your CPA or enrolled agent receives from us
- Lead schedules for every trial-balance grouping, referenced to the TB total
- Reconciliations tied to source documents — bank statements, AP/AR subledgers, fixed-asset registers — using your firm's own tickmark legend
- A PBC (prepared-by-client) list tracked to received, outstanding, and follow-up status
- Roll-forward schedules for fixed assets, debt, and equity or retained-earnings continuity accounts
- Variance analysis against prior period or budget, flagged where it needs reviewer attention
- Cross-references running from financial statement line items down through the lead schedule to supporting detail
