Conducting reviews, audits, preparing tax returns and other financial consulting activities are the core functions of most accounting firms. Each process requires extensive gathering, compiling, analysis and reporting of information. Efficient execution of these activities also requires tight coordination among accounting firm personnel and client staff.

Epok software allows accounting firm engagement managers to deploy state of the art collaboration systems, such as Microsoft SharePoint, and make sensitive financial information available to their customers in a secure and efficient manner.  Epok’s solution provides team members from both the accounting firm and client a single environment for sharing sensitive financial records, maintaining activity calendars and project schedules. It also provides a collaboration environment for team members to communicate, resolve and document issues that come up during the engagement.

With Epok software:

• Accounting firm managers can manage and maintain access authorization for client users without burdening their IT departments.
• Communications regarding the engagement activities and results are confined to a tightly controlled collaboration environment with access available for only those users with a need to know.
• End-users for both the accounting and client firms are proactively notified of their responsibilities and obligations with regard to information use to ensure compliance with SEC regulations and AICPA guidelines.  Users can instantly view a dynamic list of all financial information for which he or she has access authorization.
• Audit staff members can search user profiles to find people with the right skills or knowledge to assist in the project.
• Controls such as automatic access expiration, watermarks, policy acknowledgements, access logs and others within the SharePoint environment dramatically limit opportunities for inadvertent disclosure and other malfeasance.
• Users from geographically dispersed offices, that may use different authentication systems, can single sign-on to SharePoint sites hosted in any office.