A firm engaging us incorporates work prepared and reviewed by TaxBooks.CFO into its own professional file. The engaging firm retains responsibility for the client relationship, final professional judgment, and the client-facing deliverable. TaxBooks.CFO remains responsible for the quality and accuracy of the work it performs within the agreed scope. This document sets out how that work is controlled: how engagements are accepted, how preparation is reviewed, how technical issues are surfaced to you rather than settled by us, and how we evidence that those controls were performed. It describes an operating model, not a capability list.
We operate as a subcontracted provider. Client-facing deliverables are issued by the engaging firm under its own name, and we do not communicate with your client unless you specifically authorise it. Where a working file or system field would otherwise carry our identification, we configure it to the engaging firm's designation and confirm this at engagement setup.
We do not perform attest engagements and we are not subject to the AICPA Statements on Quality Management Standards. We make no representation of compliance with them. We use the SQMS architecture as a reference for organising our internal controls, because a firm relying on our work should be able to interrogate it in terms the profession already uses.
Responsibility for quality in each practice area is assigned to a named individual, with a named alternate, recorded in an internal responsibility register. Each holds authority to stop work in that area. The register is maintained internally and is available to an engaging firm on request under the engagement.
Quality objectives are set for each service line, the conditions that could cause them to fail are identified, and controls are designed against those conditions. The assessment is revisited when the practice changes shape — new jurisdictions, new engagement types, or a change in who reviews.
Work is assigned by demonstrated technical capacity in the specific area, not by availability. Multi-state, nonresident, and pass-through engagements are allocated to personnel with a record in them.
Every engagement is assessed before acceptance against engagement type, jurisdictions involved, complexity, deadline, reviewer required, known judgment areas, and available capacity. The assessment and its outcome are recorded.
We decline where the technical demand exceeds our competence, where the timetable does not permit adequate review, or where accepting would place the engaging firm in an ethical position it has not been made aware of. Declining is a normal outcome, and we would rather say so at intake than mid-season.
We do not release work without completion of an independent review. Where appropriate reviewer capacity is unavailable for a given engagement, the work is not released until it is.
Preparation necessarily involves professional judgment — classification, research conclusions, apportionment treatment, nexus indicators, accounting treatment. We apply and document professional judgment within the scope of the preparation work.
Separately, we identify and document positions that require engagement-level determination: matters where a defensible alternative treatment exists, where the outcome depends on the client's facts or risk appetite, or where the position is one a signer should own. These are escalated to the engaging firm with the analysis and the alternatives, and the engaging firm resolves them. We do not adopt a client-facing position on your behalf.
Preparation, internal review, escalation of identified positions, delivery to the engaging firm, your review, your approval, release to the client. No file moves to a client from us, and no file is presented to you as final before internal review is recorded as complete.
The most common failure in outsourced professional work is ambiguity about who decided what. The allocation below is fixed and does not vary by engagement.
| Activity | Performs | Reviews | Final decision |
|---|---|---|---|
| Client acceptance and engagement letter | Engaging firm | — | Engaging firm |
| Scope, timetable and fee to the client | Engaging firm | — | Engaging firm |
| Preparation and workpaper documentation | TaxBooks.CFO | TaxBooks.CFO reviewer | — |
| Identification of technical issues | TaxBooks.CFO | TaxBooks.CFO reviewer | — |
| Analysis of an escalated position | TaxBooks.CFO | Engaging firm | Engaging firm |
| Client-facing position | — | — | Engaging firm |
| Final return or report approval | — | Engaging firm | Engaging firm |
| Communication to the client | Engaging firm | — | Engaging firm |
Work is prepared, never signed. Positions are identified and analysed, never adopted on your behalf.
A control that leaves no record is a statement of intent. Performance of the controls described above is evidenced in the engagement workpapers or practice-management records, and that evidence is made available to the engaging firm at delivery and on request thereafter, so that what sits behind the deliverable can go into your file alongside it.
Depending on the engagement, it includes the acceptance record, preparer and reviewer identification, review notes and their clearance, technical research supporting positions taken, documented escalations, the engaging firm's resolution instructions, and internal review status at the point of delivery.
Completed engagements are sampled for internal inspection on a defined cycle. Findings are tracked to root cause and to a change in process rather than to an individual.
Each remediation action is assigned an owner and a completion date, and is verified as effective before it is closed. Where an identified error has reached an engaging firm, that firm is informed promptly, the impact is assessed, and the corrective action is documented. Any client-facing correction is determined by the engaging firm.
An outsourcing arrangement allocates certain professional and client-facing obligations to the engaging firm. We identify those allocations at intake so they are handled before work begins.
Client notification. Where AICPA professional requirements require client consent or notification for use of a third-party service provider, we require the engaging firm to confirm that requirement has been satisfied before work begins.
Tax return information. Where Internal Revenue Code §7216 and its implementing regulations require taxpayer consent for disclosure or use of tax return information, we provide the engaging firm with the information needed for its consent documentation. The engaging firm obtains and retains the required consent before the applicable disclosure or use occurs.
Confidentiality and non-solicitation. Client information reaches only personnel assigned to that engagement and is used for no other purpose. We do not solicit the clients of firms we work with, during the engagement or after it ends.
Independence on audit support. We perform preparation and documentation under your supervision. Scope, materiality, evaluation of evidence, and all conclusions remain yours. We will not accept an instruction that would compromise that division.
Information security. Client records are handled on hosted professional infrastructure rather than local machines, with access controls and multi-factor authentication. We maintain a written information security program governing access, transmission, retention and disposal of client data. Records are retained for the period the engagement requires and disposed of on the schedule the engaging firm specifies. Any incident affecting your clients' data would be reported to you without delay. Client information is not submitted to public generative AI systems for model training or general-purpose processing.
If anything above needs to be evidenced or amended before your firm could proceed, that is the right conversation to have first. The technical work can be assessed afterwards through a controlled sample engagement — limited scope, no client-facing use, no production reliance — at no fee.
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