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Tax & AccountingNovember 11, 2024

Accelerate auditor expertise with CCH® Knowledge Coach: Empowering teams through technology

By: Wolters Kluwer Tax and Accounting

Accounting firms often struggle to quickly elevate staff proficiency in a demanding and complex environment. CCH® Knowledge Coach solutions, including CCH Axcess™ Knowledge Coach and CCH® ProSystem fx® Knowledge Coach, help firms meet this need by embedding risk-based auditing methodology directly into the workflow, enabling staff to contribute meaningfully from day one. This article explores how Knowledge Coach achieves these goals by:

  • Providing structured guidance and real-time feedback to enhance auditor confidence and skills
  • Embedding data-driven insights to accelerate proficiency and improve decision-making
  • Leveraging the power of the platform to integrate audit and tax workflows, streamlining processes and enhancing team collaboration 


Introduction

As the demand for high-quality audits increases, accounting firms are looking for ways to equip their staff to contribute meaningfully right from the start. Traditional learning models often require extensive training time before new auditors can handle complex work independently. Knowledge Coach addresses this challenge by embedding audit methodology directly into the workflow, allowing staff to engage fully with their work from day one. This risk-based auditing provides guidance at each step, helping both new and seasoned auditors complete their work confidently and effectively while understanding their client better than ever.

Knowledge Coach’s real-time feedback and adaptable workflows transform each audit into a hands-on learning opportunity that aligns with firm and industry standards, enhancing both workflow efficiency and audit quality. 

An important thing about Knowledge Coach's knowledge-based methodology are the diagnostics because they always prompt you to consider your input, whether that be against your plan or against risk assessment standards. Have you linked your risk? Did you link it correctly? Did you address the relevant ascertains? Just always evaluating your data input and helping you ensure that you are in compliance. That is one of the best things about Knowledge Coach. In fact, the KBA Methodology was one of the leading reasons I changed from our old methodology to Knowledge Coach.
Jason Miller, CPA, Partner, Anglin Reichmann Armstrong

Building confidence through real-time feedback and guidance

One of its most powerful features is its ability to provide real-time feedback, which creates a supportive learning environment for staff. Knowledge Coach guides auditors through complex tasks with intuitive prompts and actionable insights based on the latest standards and methodologies. This guidance helps staff understand not just what steps to take, but why those steps are critical. The result is faster confidence-building for new staff, while experienced auditors benefit from consistent, high-quality outcomes. By continuously supporting auditors in their workflow, Knowledge Coach minimizes repetitive errors and accelerates the path to proficiency.

Accelerating proficiency with data-driven insights

Data analytics is now an essential aspect of every audit for revealing risks and insights. Knowledge Coach integrates data analytics into the audit process, equipping auditors with the ability to interpret and leverage data effectively when relevant. This exposure helps auditors at all experience levels develop a data-driven mindset, which enhances their ability to spot patterns, assess risks, and make informed decisions. As firms increasingly look to data for strategic insights, TeamMate® Analytics capabilities, embedded within Knowledge Coach, ensure that staff are not only prepared but also empowered to excel in a data-enriched audit environment.

Standardizing best practices for all auditors

Knowledge Coach adds value across the entire team by standardizing workflows and promoting consistent audit quality. With structured processes and embedded guidance, auditors at all levels can follow firm-approved methodologies, ensuring adherence to best practices and regulatory standards. This standardization enables firms to achieve consistency in audit quality, regardless of individual experience levels, making it easier for teams to collaborate effectively and deliver reliable results. Senior auditors, for example, benefit from streamlined processes that allow them to focus on higher-level analysis and decision-making, while junior staff gain a solid foundation for their growth.

Real results in firms

Firms using Knowledge Coach report transformative improvements in staff performance and engagement. For instance, a leading firm in Texas shared that Knowledge Coach has “leveled up the audit process,” significantly improving both efficiency and quality.
Knowledge Coach allows us to bring new auditors up to speed much faster while maintaining the quality we’re known for.
Andy Hines, CPA, Partner, Whitley Penn
By embedding expertise directly into the tool, Knowledge Coach helps minimize the learning curve, empowering staff to contribute with confidence and precision from the outset. These firsthand accounts highlight the tangible impact Knowledge Coach has in elevating the quality of work across the team.
Every engagement, big, small, does not matter, they have areas of complexity, and the standards require us to address the areas of complexity and tailor our audit program accordingly. That is one thing that Knowledge Coach really helps out in.
Troy Coon, CPA, Partner, Watson Coon Ryan

Power of the platform: Integrated workflows for audit and tax

Harness the power of the platform to seamlessly integrate your audit applications with tax prep, time and billing, practice management, workflow optimization and client collaboration tools. With a shared database, all CCH Axcess™ applications connect automatically, offering richer data insights and smoother processes across your firm.

Since CCH Knowledge Coach solutions seamlessly integrate with CCH® Engagement solutions which, in turn, integrate with CCH® Tax solutions auditors have access to comprehensive client data without redundancy or manual transfers. As a result, this integration not only saves time but also provides a holistic view of the client’s financial picture, which can reveal deeper insights and opportunities. 
Best of breed solutions might seem like a good idea but the ability to have data flow across a platform is a better idea. Choose a partner not a product.
Rick Kasnick, CPA, Managing Partner (Northeast), Roedl & Partner USA

Conclusion

In the rapidly evolving accounting industry, firms face the challenge of quickly elevating staff proficiency. Cloud-based CCH Axcess Knowledge Coach or on-premise CCH ProSystem fx Knowledge Coach address this by embedding risk-based auditing methodology directly into the workflow. These tools provide structured guidance, real-time feedback, and data-driven insights, enabling auditors to contribute meaningfully from day one. By standardizing best practices and integrating audit and tax workflows, Knowledge Coach enhances team collaboration and efficiency. This empowers firms to develop their audit teams swiftly, ensuring high-quality outcomes and enabling auditors to thrive in a complex landscape. Knowledge Coach sets the standard for empowering auditors to excel, making it an essential solution for modern accounting firms.
Wolters Kluwer Tax and Accounting

Wolters Kluwer Tax and Accounting is a leading provider of software solutions and expertise that helps tax, accounting and audit professionals research and navigate complex regulations, comply with legislation, manage their businesses and advise clients with speed and accuracy.

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