The compliance landscape is constantly changing. Reviewing those changes and understanding how they affect your engagement letters is a huge task. As an OverSuite subscriber, we do that for you formally on a quarterly basis and ad-hoc as changes arise.
What did we review?
This quarter we have reviewed…
- Changes to the professional body regulations to understand their impact on terms and conditions
- The scopes and service schedules to ensure no changes to legislations
What has changed?
Professional Bodies
1. The ICAEW and ICAS now require DPB registered firms to inform their clients that they may be covered by the Chartered Accountants compensation fund in the case that there is a claim related to investment business. This has been reflected in the Terms and Conditions. So now, if you’re a member of one of these professional bodies and are DPB registered, it will include this statement as best practice…
Investment Advice, Funding & Consumer Credit [changes]
In the event of a claim in the unlikely event that we cannot meet our liabilities to you, you may be able to claim compensation under the Chartered Accountants’ Compensation Scheme.
Payroll Service Schedules
1. All payroll related service schedules have been updated for risk management purposes. An additional clause has been added to clarify the responsibilities of your client to ensure they are paying employees at or above standard minimum wage. You will see the following clause in payroll service schedules related to fixed and variable salary employees.
Payroll: Fixed Salary Employees, Variable Salary Employees, Fixed and Variable Salary Employees [changes]
You are legally responsible for:
Ensuring, where appropriate, the national minimum wage has been paid.
What else is new?
Letters of Engagement for Clubs
1. The Not for Profit Pack has 5 additional scopes. These can be used where you are undertaking an audit or an independent accountants report for a club and should be issued separately to any additional pieces of work you may do for the club. The following are now available for addition to your Engagement Letter Library:
- Club (Audit) – Unincorporated
- Club (Audit) – Incorporated under the Cooperative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014
- Club (Audit) – Incorporated under The Friendly Societies Act 1974
- Club Independent Accountants Report – Incorporated (Cooperative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014)
- Club Independent Accountants Report – Incorporated (The Friendly Societies Act 1974)
Click the button below to understand how to add new scopes to your library.
New Service Schedules
1. CGT – Based on popular demand and to reflect recent legislative changes, we have added a new service schedule to cover notification of Capital Gains Tax on properties sold in the UK on or after 6.04.2020. This is titled: CGT on properties sold in the UK on or after 6.04.2020.
2. VAT Registration Monitoring – For those of you that take responsibility for monitoring your clients business income for the need for VAT registration, we have included a service schedule for this to ensure you can set out all of the information required for you to do so.
What do you need to do?
Changes to the terms and conditions for ICAEW and ICAS members that are DPB registered can wait until your clients letter of engagement renewal date for communication.
If you have clients with employees on salaries close to minimum wage, we would recommend issuing the updated Payroll service schedule as an addendum (for example, in an e-mail to your client).
If you currently monitor your clients income to notify them of the VAT threshold, or would like to start offering this as a service, we would recommend creating a new service for this and issuing this service schedule either as an addendum to existing clients you do this for, or to any new client engagement letters you provide moving forwards.
What if I’ve previously amended the content?
Where you have made direct amendments to any statements that were updated as part of the Quarterly Review, it will be highlighted in your GoProposal app that there is now an updated statement for you to consider. So you can choose whether you would like to retain what you have in there or revert to the update.
Click here to learn is how you revert to the new updated version >>
“For over 30 years Valerie Steward has worked with accountancy practices, helping them to develop their businesses and remain compliant. She has authored and co-authored a number of technical guides, work programmes on audit and anti-money laundering and practical aids such as engagement letters as well as publications on practice management and the not for profit sector.”
Valerie StewardAt The Forefront Of Compliance For Over 30 Years
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