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Thanks to all who have responded to our recent survey. We received 44 responses including the following interesting results:

• Predictably the most common use for Audit Assistant is Small non-profits (under $500k turnover).
• 41% of respondents have used the customising features.
• The most popular feature of Audit Assistant was the compliance with standards, followed closely by online access.
• We asked what people like least about Audit Assistant. The answers were quite varied. Many were things we are already working on solutions for (transactions testing improvements, IFRS content, trial balance importing, automatic calculation of profit into equity, duplicate clients, flexibility in indexing). Some issues such as slowness are related to browser and internet issues. There are a number of comments on the support site about how to use AA to it's optimum speed. The first thing to do it to make sure you are using Chrome or at least be using IE8 or Firefox.
• 61% of respondents expressed in interest in accessing the Brookers IFRS content which will be completed shortly.
• 50% expressed an interest in using the AA platform for compilation work - so this is something we will pursue and seek feedback from users in the next month or two.
• Regarding technical support we were pleased to see 82% either satisfied or very satisfied, the rest being neutral or n/a. This is something we continue to work on and will add extra resources to as funds allow.
• When we asked users to rank what we should be prioritising, importing and improving sorting of the trial balance came out highest, followed by more efficient user customisation and improved transaction testing pages. Also highly requested was adding a library of standard documents and templates.
• Overall satisfaction was 39% very satisfied, 43% satisfied, 14% neutral and 5% dissatisfied.

We are pleased with the results and they help us to focus on the areas of highest need. We will be looking at specific issues raised and answering questions directly and also publishing responses on the support site.

Audit Assistant versions of the Brookers Financial Disclosure Templates for NZIFRS are now ready for use.

These are an optional add-on for Audit Assistant for "Standard" (75 clients) and higher (those on lower plans will need to upgrade to access).

Cost is 15% higher than the current Audit Assistant subscription amounts (royalty payable to Brookers). So instead of using the Word-based versions from Brookers users can now adopt the complete set of checklists into an existing Audit Assistant job, then use checklist pages as required with all functionality of Audit Assistant (creating Management Points, Follow-ups, Review notes etc.) directly integrated into the checklist. Firms will also be able to bring the checklists into their custom masters, and then customise the checklists as required.

We have done our best to faithfully duplicate the templates but in some cases we have had to change the layout somewhat to fit the Audit Assistant style. We think the result will be easier to follow. We have also split the checklists into two for Differential and Standard jobs. Full references and hyperlinks to the Standards themselves are included. We are in the process of adding FRS standard and FRS Differential versions also so that the complete Brookers product will be replicated. These will be included in the cost.

Initially we have created full IFRS and IFRS Differential versions of the 'General' template. We are currently in the process of a full revision of all our templates and creating new versions for different types of jobs which will include IFRS as appropriate in a more integrated way.

For details of how to upgrade from an existing account see here.