Your database may not automatically appear in the Select Database Location window for several reasons. If it does not automatically appear, you will need to manually enter the SQL server name. For additional information on this issue, please refer to the MSDN article on
Enumerating Instances of SQL Server.

At this time, SMART e-Practice Aids – Risk Assessment is not available in CSI’s Virtual Office environment. Additional development and testing by both our company and Creative Solutions will be needed to make this happen. Currently, we do not have an ETA for this project.

If your firm wishes to use the software, it would require installing it and the corresponding e-Practice Aids locally for users who would be conducting the risk assessment portion of audit planning.

Note: You can bring SMART e-Practice Aid documents into Virtual Office (select File | New | Document | Document from PPC’s SMART e-Practice Aids™ option in Engagement CS in Virtual Office) so they will be easily accessible for the remainder of your engagement work.

Risk-Based e-Practice Aids were available in 2006 and have been replaced with the “Substantive” title which means that instead of using Risk-Based e-Practice Aids for Nonprofit Organizations, you will now use e-Practice Aids for Nonprofit Organizations which has been updated for 2007 and includes the risk based approach.

Work with your IT department to investigate and resolve permission issues.

No. PPC’s SMART e-Practice Aids™ — Risk Assessment can be used with the following e-Practice Aid audit titles:

• e-Practice Aids - Audits of Nonpublic Companies
• e-Practice Aids - Audits of Local Governments
• e-Practice Aids - Audits of Nonprofit Organizations
• e-Practice Aids - Audits of Employee Benefit Plans
• e-Practice Aids - Audits of Financial Institutions
• e-Practice Aids - Construction Contractors
• e-Practice Aids – PCAOB Audits
• e-Practice Aids - Dealerships
• e-Practice Aids - Homeowners' Associations
• e-Practice Aids - HUD Audits

After completing the risk assessment, the software will generate MS Word files. You will need to select a temporary output location and then import those files into your paperless engagement software.

Go to File and select Save As. Select an existing client or enter a new one. Then type a new engagement name and click Ok.

SMART e-Practice Aids Risk Assessment customizes the Word templates installed by e-Practice Aids. Currently, twelve e- Practice Aid titles work with the Risk Assessment software, with more titles to be developed in the future.

Click to highlight and drag the step to the pane on the right, which will remove the step from the audit program prior to document generation and preserve the change for rollforward.

Since the generated documents will be used in a variety of other applications, the population and handling of client name and engagement date will be handled by those applications, such as Engagement CS, ProSystem fx Engagement, or Caseware. If the documents are to be used independent of paperless engagement software, the function Share Data from the PPC drop-down menu in Word will populate this information.

Preparing for Rollforward

1. In Engagement CS, exclude SPR from the Engagement CS rollforward.
2. Review the planning forms and audit programs generated from SPR (those excluded from rollforward in step 1) and make sure any changes made to them also were made within the SPR application.

How to Roll Forward the Engagement

3. In Engagement CS, select Rollforward to create the Year 2 engagement.
4. In SPR, select Rollforward to create the Year 2 SPR engagement and to copy responses and customizations from Year 1 forms to Year 2 forms.
5. In Engagement CS, with the Year 2 engagement selected, launch SPR and open the Year 2 SPR engagement.
6. In SPR, ensure that the Year 2 engagement is open and continue the normal risk assessment planning process. Then generate forms to the default location for the Year 2 engagement in Engagement CS.

For more detailed information and best practices about Integrating PPC's SMART e-Practice Aids with Engagement CS click here.

The audit approach is disabled until selections are made for Inherent Risk, Control Risk, and Risk of Material Misstatement. If assessing risk by assertion, selections must be completed for all assertions before the audit approach will be enabled. You may need to maximize the screen and/or change your screen resolution to 1440 x 900 to see any vertical scroll bars and scroll down to ensure all selections have been made.

You may need to provide an exception for SMART e-Practice Aids in your firewall to allow the application to connect to a database on a network server. If the machine on which the SMART e-Practice Aids database is installed has a firewall, then the firewall will need to be configured to allow communication with the database. To allow others to browse to the database in SMART e-Practice Aids, then the firewall will also need to be configured to allow communication with the SQL Browser service. We recommend you work with your IT and your specific Firewall provider in creating the exception.

If you use the Windows Firewall, see the topic Configure Windows Firewall for use with SMART e-Practice Aids Database in the Internet Detailed Install Guide for more information.

Tip: Configuring Windows Firewall requires administrative privileges. If you do not have administrative rights on the computer you wish to configure, contact your IT administrator.

Other leading personal firewall vendors include:

Personal Firewalls

Zone Alarm - http://www.zonealarm.com/store/content/support/support.jsp?dc=12bms&ctry=US&lang=en

Norton Internet Security - http://www.symantec.com/home_homeoffice/support/productdetail/index.jsp?pvid=nis_2008

The Transaction Class that is the ‘parent’ to the existing control objective must be marked as significant before you can add custom controls to the control objective.

There are several methods that may be used to accomplish backup.

1) Use the Backup feature from the File drop-down menu to backup your engagement data to a network or other location. Once created, users can easily restore from the backup files accessing the Restore option from the File menu.

2) Regular database backups of the ETLSPA.mdf and ETLSPA_log.LDF files are recommended. These files are located in the C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.x\MSSQL\Data directory (where x is the the sequence number of the instance created in SQL that contains the ETLSPA files). There are various ways to do a backup (via script, etc.).

View Best Practices: How to Back Up, Restore, and Delete Engagements

See http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms187510.aspx. It explains how to do a full SQL database backup using the free SQL Server Management Studio.

Once the risk assessment phase is complete use the either the Backup option from the File menu or the Transfer option from the Tools menu to move the data to a network location. Other users will then be able to restore or receive this file and rollforward at a future date.

View Best Practices: How to Back Up, Restore, and Delete Engagements

View Best Practices: Working Remotely (Transferring Files)

Standalone users will use the Transfer/Receive option from the Tools menu to allow editing by multiple users. This means that only one user can edit the engagement at one time. The easiest method to transfer an engagement is using the Transfer by e-mail option.

Refer to the SMART e-Practice Aids help system for further details on how to use Transfer/Receive.

View Best Practices: How to Back Up, Restore, and Delete Engagements

View Best Practices: Working Remotely (Transferring Files)

The backup function does not back up the entire database. It only backs up a single engagement. If you need to backup your all of your databases utilize industry-standard server backup software to back up all of your databases. To backup a single engagement see Best Practices document: How to Back Up, Restore, and Delete Engagements

Also see http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms187510.aspx. It explains how to do a full SQL database backup using the free SQL Server Management Studio.

If you normally access a shared network database for SMART e-Practice Aids – Risk Assessment, but when you are working without connectivity to a network server, you need to complete a Transfer and Receive of the engagements you need to work on locally.

See Best Practices document: Working Remotely (Transferring Files)

An error message is displayed when the user attempts to access the database through SMART e-Practice Aids. The user clicks Open, New or Save and a connection cannot be made to the database server.

The solution: Try the action again. For example, click Open, New or Save again.

Why does this happen?

When SQL Server Express idles, the first attempt to connect to the database does not always succeed. But the second attempt should. If subsequent attempts do not succeed, contact your IT Administrator to determine if there has been a network disruption or the database service has been turned off.

SMART ePractice Aids work “disconnected” from the database and only reconnects during certain functions, like Open, New and Save. For this reason, it’s possible for a user to work for extended periods of time on an engagement without connecting to the underlying database. (You will be prompted to save each unit of work as it's completed. Saving regularly is recommended and should avoid the issue of the database going idle.)

Technical Information:

The idling of SQL Server Express is a known feature and more discussion about this subject can be found at: Slow Startup from Idle and SQL Server Goes Idle

This can be caused by a number of issues. Try the following to resolve:

1. Close all outlook.exe and winword.exe processes in your task manager.
2. In MS Word go to the Help menu and run Detect & Repair.

Note: Detect & Repair may require the MS Office installation CD-ROM.

Anti-spyware products are removing registry entries that begin with any capitalization form of "PPC" in response to a Trojan virus. The virus targets a popular consumer product - not your PPC products. Unfortunately the PPC and WG&L e-Tool products as well as PPC's Smart e-Practice Aids-Risk Assessment are affected by the anti-spyware action since they rely on registry entries that begin with PPC.

Read the full Technical Bulletin. The latest pattern file as of 9/26/2007 no longer identifies PPC as a threat. Ensure that you get the latest pattern files before running the scan again.

In Microsoft Word 2007 you must personalize your copy of Word. If the Word Options values are blank it causes the properties of the options object to be invalid. These blank fields cause a Runtime error:
Bad Parameter. This is an issue with the Microsoft Word API.

Solution: To resolve the issue, fill out the User name and Initials fields in Microsoft Word Options.

Follow these steps:

1. Open MS Word
2. Click the Office button in the top left hand corner of your screen.
3. Click the Word Options button at the bottom of the screen.
4. Select Popular. Note: This is usually the default selection.
5. In the section, Personalize your copy of Microsoft Office, fill in the values for:
   • User name and
   • Initials.

Note: For more information about this go to: Knowledgebase Reference

Alternate Solution: Complete your document generation from a system using an earlier version of MS Office.

Performing a repair of SMART e-Practice Aids should resolve this issue. For Windows XP users, access the repair through Start > Control Panel > Add or Remove Programs > PPC SMART e-Practice Aids – Risk Assessment. Click the link ‘Click here for support information,’ and select the button marked Repair.

For Windows Vista users, access the repair through Start > Control Panel > Programs and Features > PPC Smart e-Practice Aids – Risk Assessment. Click the button for repair.

The most likely cause is having your Microsoft Office products set to use the Reading layout view. Try resetting back to the Normal or Print layout views. You may also need to delete any recovered files and/or delete or rename Word's normal.dot file. Please refer to Microsoft's help system within your particular version of Office for specific steps on changing the view or dealing with recovered files.

You may also need to de-select the Allow starting in Reading Layout option in some versions of Word. This option is accessed from the Tools > Options > General tab. If this does not resolve your issue, or you need assistance with the above steps, please contact Technical Support.

Check to see if you have the keypad driver NumLock Commander running by using CTRL-ALT-DEL, selecting Task Manager and looking for NumLock Commander on the Processes tab. Highlight NumLock Commander and click end the process. Disabling this driver will allow SMART e-Practice Aids to work correctly.

You can also disable this driver by right clicking on the icon for NumLock Commander in the system tray and turning off the driver for the current session.

To prevent the driver from launching on startup, go to Start/Run, type in MSCONFIG, choose the Startup tab and de-select NumLock Commander. You will need to reboot your machine after removing the driver from startup. According to the vendor, this driver which was used with serial devices such as external keypads, is not needed for the newer USB devices.

There are two possible reasons. Some Control Activities forms (CX-5 series) in engagements based on Audits of Construction Contractors or Audits of Financial Institutions) may not be included in the new engagement after rolling forward in SMART e-Practice Aids, due to substantial changes to the forms from 2007 to 2008. Use Insert | Add Forms to include the desired forms in the current engagement. For engagements using SMART e-Practice Aids Internal Control functionality, these forms are replaced by the Internal Control section under Step 1.

If you see messages similar to:

"The server, while acting as a gateway or proxy to fulfill the request, received an invalid response . . ."
OR
"We are unable to verify which products you are licensed for at this time (the PPCMULTISELECTWS service is unavailable),"

you may need to provide an exception for ppcdownloads.thomson.com and/or ppc.thomson.com.edgesuite.net to allow your firewall and/or proxy servers to download and install your e-Tool and SMART e-Practice Aids – Risk Assessment products.

We recommend you work with your IT and your specific Firewall provider in creating the exception.

Leading personal firewall vendors include:

Personal Firewalls

Windows Firewall – http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/security/internet/sp2_wfintro.mspx

Zone Alarm - http://www.zonealarm.com/store/content/support/support.jsp?dc=12bms&ctry=US&lang=en

Norton Internet Security - http://www.symantec.com/home_homeoffice/support/productdetail/index.jsp?pvid=nis_2008

Proxy Servers

Fortinet - http://support.fortinet.com/

Barracuda - http://www.barracudanetworks.com/ns/support/

Check Point - https://usercenter.checkpoint.com/support/

Yes. The administrative install point option is now available.

Note: Some prerequisite pieces such as the dotnetfx.exe, mdac_typ.exe, and sqlexpr.exe cannot be pushed through Active Directory. The application including the prerequisite pieces can be installed by the user from the network administration point by clicking on setup.exe. Deployment in subsequent installs can be used if the prerequisites are previously installed.

CX 4.3 Walkthrough Documentation Table can be added as an optional form under Step 1 Identify Risks. The Internal Control module involves looking at many transactions, and may involve testing, so that you can gain, not just an understanding of how controls are designed, but a comfort that the controls are actually functioning and can be relied upon.

SMART e-Practice Aids generates planning forms and audit programs in the leading e-Practice Aids Word document format. These documents can be used alone in Word or incorporated into any paperless engagement software. Our support site includes best practices documents to provide more detail on this topic.

For complete e-Practice Aid functionality of the documents generated from SMART e-Practice Aids, the user must be licensed for that e-Practice Aid title.

You may first need to create a new engagement and select yes to the question Do you want to use SMART e-Practice Aids - Internal Control with this engagement. This will then allow the functionality to be enabled on all engagements.

There may be times when a single exception does not prevent you from assessing control risk at moderate or low. The auditor uses judgment to make this decision. When exceptions are present and control risk is assessed at moderate or low, a diagnostic will alert the auditor so they can make a determination if this is what they want.

A series of input fields are provided for each transaction class you selected as significant. For each transaction class, use the input field to describe the flow of information (or to reference memos or other documentation about the flow of information). If desired, select View Control Activities Form to view a list of specific control activities related to the transaction class. The Control Activities Form may be used to further document your understanding of controls and to indicate the controls, if any, that you plan to test. A question following each transaction class prompts you to conclude whether the controls are properly designed and implemented. Generally, you should focus on objectives related to the assertions you identified as potentially being higher risk and the key controls for those objectives. Pay particular attention to controls that address risk of material misstatement due to fraud or management override.

For the first time Internal Control is enabled on an existing Risk Assessment engagement, information entered on CX-4.1 and CX-5 series forms will not be populated into the Internal Control module. For subsequent years, using rollforward will carry forward Internal Control information to next year.

Initial release in August will work with:

• 2008 ePA for Nonpublic Companies
• 2008 ePA for Nonprofit Organizations
• 2008 ePA for Local Gov't
• 2008 ePA for Financial Institutions
• 2008 ePA for Construction Contractors

October, when the 2008 ePA releases:

• 2008 ePA for Dealerships
• 2008 ePA for Tax Basis Financial Statements (new)
• 2008 ePA Homeowners
• 2008 ePA HUD

In 2009, when the 2009 ePA releases:

• 2009 ePA for Employee Benefit Plans

The Internal Control module is beneficial for gaining a deeper understanding of internal control, documenting, and evaluating system design. Testing of controls is an available process but not required.

Yes, the Internal Control module is completely integrated with Risk Assessment. Control Risk Assessment entered in Internal Control will carry to Step 2 Assess Effects of Risk. If a change is made to Control Risk in Step 2, it will carry back to Internal Control.

Yes. The Internal Control module contains a complete database of objectives, controls, and test procedures. You can edit existing items or customize and add your own. Use the Insert menu or right-click menu.