Thomson Reuters — Accounting CS

800-968-8900

www.cs.thomsonreuters.com

Thomson Reuters debuted its new Accounting CS system earlier this year, offering a unified professional application that combines write-up, trial balance, financials reporting, and live and after-the-fact payroll processing and compliance system. It also includes web-based client-side accounting that integrates directly with the professional package, thereby enabling greater collaboration, streamlining write-up and payroll functions and increasing data accuracy. The system also offers integration with other applications in the CS Professional Suite and Enterprise Suite, including practice and document management, analysis and asset management. Thomson Reuters also continues to offer its Write-Up CS program.

Basic System Functions

Although the program retains some of the general functionality of other CS-branded programs, Thomson Reuters has designed an entirely new interface for Accounting CS that is centered on the Home Dashboard, a completely user-customizable screen that provides multiple panels for quick access to important information. It can be set to display client and firm information such as payroll activities, account balances, reporting options and other summary data. The Home Dashboard also offers tabbed access to the CS Professional Suite and Enterprise Suite home page, a knowledgebase and the ARNE online user community. Users can also add additional custom links.

Icon and pull-down navigation menus are available at the top of the screen, and a feature-specific menu on the left gives access to transaction functions, invoicing, reporting, reconciliation, vendor and employee management screens, payroll, and other program areas. Additional dashboards are also available for firm management and staff management, as well as client-specific dashboards, all of which can be tailored to include quick access to income statements, document management, payroll or other information. During program setup, the system guides users through a template interface for adding clients, setting firm-wide defaults and creating charts of accounts, with the ability to create templates and copy existing charts.

Work screens offer tabbed access to related areas and data-entry fields with automatically built selection fields and smart features that include built-in verification of SSN and TINs, along with automatic access to clients’ federal and state tax liabilities. Client and employee selection screens offer basic sorting options along with more advanced search capabilities.

The dashboard-centric interface in Accounting CS provides excellent navigation and simplifies management of multiple clients, including giving users the ability to work on multiple clients simultaneously, or to divide tasks among several professionals at the firm. The program can support any number of business entities and concurrent professional staff users, with custom security settings that allow firm management to grant or restrict user access to any part of the program. System alerts can also be set up to notify users of client issues such as payroll runs, account balances and workflow tasks. 5

Core Write-Up Features

The program can manage unlimited years’ worth of data, and staff users have quick access to the GL, chart of accounts and journals from the Client Dashboard. All data-entry screens offer smart entry features and selection lists for accounts, with journal views presented in a spreadsheet format with the ability to easily access transaction details and perform edits or enter adjusting entries. Transaction screens can also be worked with in a checkbook view mode and in customizable heads-down mode, with the ability to add vendors on-the-fly. Unlimited account categories, segments and groupings can also be managed, and recurring transactions can be set to post automatically.