Thomson Reuters - Engagement CS
800-968-8900; CS.ThomsonReuters.com
WORKFLOW & ENGAGEMENT MANAGEMENT: 
Engagement CS has some nice engagement management features that allow users
to more easily manage their roles. You can either directly enter the product
to start working or get an overall picture of the engagement by viewing the
“dashboard.” This allows you to see the status of each engagement
such as what tasks need to be done, which tasks have been reviewed, what the
status is of the review notes that have been left by the reviewer, which tasks
have not been assigned, etc.
My favorite feature of the product is the review feature. This allows the reviewer to navigate throughout the product and “preview” the workpapers/attachments. The preview opens the document in Engagement CS and not in the native application (Word, Excel, etc.). Once the document is opened in Engagement CS, the reviewer can leave “sticky notes” anywhere on the document. This saves a tremendous amount of time in the review stage of the engagement.
Another nice feature is the “live” updates of journal entries to lead schedules and the trial balance. When you add a journal entry to the application, all relevant data is updated “live.” Once the engagement has been completed, Engagement CS has some nice roll-forward options. It allows you to determine if you want to overwrite, delete, roll-forward or update items in your binder. This is a nice option that saves time at the end of each engagement.
RELATIVE VALUE:
Engagement CS is a very effective engagement application that allows each firm
to achieve workflow improvements. It has many of the same features as other
engagement products, but Thomson Reuters has jumped ahead of the competition
by offering a hosted version of the application. Product pricing starts at $1,200
for four users. If your firm is not currently using Engagement CS, the full-featured
hosted version allows your firm to try it out without making any significant
IT investment (dollars and time).
