How does the review and sign-off work?

Internal controls are important to an organisation as they ensure that any errors are detected timeously. The processes around preparing, reviewing and submitting a tax return are pivotal to an organisations ability to ensure compliance of tax legislation. Thus, it is important to be able to track a tax return through its life cycle. Having an automated review process ensures an easy way to track your return through your tax processes and enhance your internal control practices. 

Benefits

Strong internal controls maintained even with remote working team members

With remote working teams, it has become harder to maintain effective and efficient internal controls and manage risk. An automated review process allows for a seamless application of sound internal controls regardless of where your team is located.

Accountability at each stage of the tax filing process

All activity performed around a specific filing for the period is logged in an audit trail. This includes all documents prepared, calculations completed, and review of all relevant information pertaining to the filing prior to submission. Thus, there is always the ability to assign responsibility to individuals involved in the process at different stages and hold them accountable to completing the specific task.

How does it work?

Types of sign off roles

There are two types of sign off that can occur on a card:

• Preparer – responsible for the preparation of the working papers, and completing the relevant tax form;
• Reviewer – responsible for reviewing the working papers, and ensuring the figures submitted to the revenue services are accurate and complete. You can assign multiple reviewers and levels of review depending on the needs of your team.

How are levels of review assigned?

When a tax filing is created, users are assigned to the Preparer and Reviewer roles for that tax filing. Upon generation of the tax filing cards, they will be assigned to the Preparer by default.

Types of sign off

Sign off occurs in two specific areas:

1. Sign off of all working papers added
2. Overall sign off on the entire preparation and review of a particular months filing.

Sign off of all working papers added

For each working paper or file added to a tax filing, the Reviewer will have the ability to sign off each file as reviewed. This will allow the Reviewer the ability to keep track of which working papers have been reviewed and if any changes are made after review.

Overall sign off on the entire preparation and review of a particular months filing

Users will be able to sign off on a card in totality, i.e. on all activity undertaken within a card. This sign off occurs at both the level of Preparer (all activity within a card has been completed and ready for review) and Reviewer (all activity within a card has been reviewed and is ready for submission to the relevant revenue service).

Once the Preparer has signed off, an email is sent to the Reviewer notifying them that the filing is ready for review. Once the Reviewer has signed off, an email is sent to both Preparer and Reviewer notifying them that the filing has been reviewed and is ready for submission.

The Reviewer also has the ability to remove the “Prepared” sign off on a card if they would like to send the card back to the Preparer for additional information or work to be performed.

Finalise and Lock

Once a card is signed off as reviewed, the preparer and reviewer are still able to make changes to the card. This design is such as most working papers and tax computations are reviewed first prior to submission to the revenue services. Thus, post review, a user, either Preparer or Reviewer, needs the ability to carry out the remaining activities on a card, i.e. submission to revenue service, attach proof of payment.

Once all activities are completed, the Reviewer has the ability to Finalise and Lock a card. In the Finalise and Lock state, no changes may be made to the card (except creating a Revenue Service Request).

How to set it up

This feature is automatically available if Role Assignments have been enabled on your tax filing.