For accounting firms doing compliance work, workpapers form a significant part of your day-to-day. When you’re evaluating a new workpaper tool, it’s important to make a considered decision. Here’s a helpful guide to make sure you do that evaluation correctly and efficiently.

Identify what’s not working with your current workpaper process

Start by naming the specific pain points with completing your workpapers today. Look for what feels frustrating, time-consuming, or repetitive, where errors tend to live and where they tend to get caught, and where the process feels unclear or messy.

One way to make this concrete: open up a workpaper and run through the process as you usually would, paying attention to where it actually feels frustrating, slow, or unclear as you go, rather than trying to recall it from memory afterwards.

A few common examples to check yourself against:

• Disconnected systems
• Lack of integrations
• No single source of truth for files and versions
• Lack of oversight
• Inconsistency across teams
• Standards not adhered to
• Manual work and lack of automations

Everyone brings a different perspective, so it’s worth asking partners, managers, accountants, preparers, and admin staff directly rather than assuming you already know what each role would say. A few questions worth putting to your team:

• What part of preparing a workpaper takes longer than it should?
• Where do errors tend to slip through, and where do they usually get caught?
• What feels repetitive, or like busywork?
• What’s unclear or inconsistent from file to file?
• What would you change first if you could?

Once you’ve got answers, try putting a rough estimate against each pain point – how much time it’s costing, and what risk it carries if it’s left as it is. You don’t need exact numbers, just enough to see which problems are genuinely costly and which are just annoying. What you’re aiming for is a clear list of what’s not working, because you can’t fix what you haven’t defined.

Work out what you can put behind it

Now that you can see what those pain points are costing you, it’s easier to see resourcing this properly as an investment rather than another project to squeeze in. A few things worth sorting early make the process feel supported rather than daunting:

• Who’s championing this internally? Someone who can own it, keep it moving, and make calls along the way.
• What’s the budget? Both for the tool itself and the time it takes to set it up well.
• How much time can you set aside? Even a few dedicated hours a week gets you to a decision faster than trying to fit it in around everything else.
• What’s the timeline? A date to work towards – a new financial year, ahead of a busy season – helps keep momentum up.

Getting clear on this upfront isn’t about adding hurdles. It’s what turns “we should really look at this” into an evaluation that actually happens.

Gather information about the workpaper tool you’re evaluating

Now that you’ve got a clear understanding of your foundations, it’s time to start evaluating. Get a clear list of the features on offer, and take the time to genuinely understand what the product provides.

A few things worth looking at:

• The company itself – its values, and whether they align with the way your firm operates.
• The features – whether they genuinely solve the pain points you named earlier and complement your app stack, not just look good on paper. Sort them into non-negotiable and nice-to-have as you go:
  • Integrations – what does it need to connect to, and how tightly?
  • Collaboration – can more than one person work in a file at once, and does that actually work well in practice?
  • Files – how are documents and evidence stored and found later?
  • Automations – what should the tool be doing for your team, rather than your team doing manually?
  • Review and sign-off – is there a clear, trackable audit trail of who reviewed what and when?
  • Security and standards – what certifications back up their handling of your data?
  • Support and training – what happens when a new starter joins, or a feature changes?
• Testimonials and case studies – explore their website for testimonials, case studies, or online ratings.

If Cimplico Workpapers is the product you’re looking at, we’ll run you through everything you need to know in a one-on-one demo.

Where to go from here

A good evaluation starts with your own firm, not a vendor’s pitch – the problems you’ve named, the resources you’ve got, and the standard you’re building toward. If you’d like to talk through how Cimplico Workpapers stacks up against your list, you can book a demo and we’ll go through it together.