Creating an Engagement

There are two ways to create engagements:

Create an engagement from scratch. Use this option to create a new engagement with the standard groupings. See the procedure below for instructions. If you need to create a consolidated engagement, see Creating a Consolidated Engagement.
Copy an existing engagement. Use this option to copy information from an existing engagement to a new engagement. This option is ideal for similar engagements or for re-using custom grouping lists. See Copying an Engagement for instructions. At this time, you cannot copy a consolidated engagement to create a new engagement.

Verify that the client you are creating an engagement for has been added to Client Manager in CCH Axcess Dashboard before proceeding. Clients cannot be added from Engagement.

To create an engagement from scratch, do the following:

Click on the navigation bar to go to the Engagement List page.
On the Engagement List page, click Start New Engagement.
Enter the Client name or ID. As you type, the client list from the CCH Axcess Common Client database opens and filters based on the characters you type.

Note: You cannot add a new client from Engagement. You must go to Client Manager in the CCH Axcess Dashboard to add new clients.

Enter the engagement name. The engagement name, ID and year-end date must be unique for a client.
Enter the ID if needed, this field is optional.
Select Year-end date.
Select Period start and Period end dates.
Note: Only annual periods are allowed.
Select the engagement type from the list.
Select the module that you would like to use for the engagement. See CCH Axcess Engagement Licenses for more information about the modules.

For the Essentials and Pro modules:

Select a Tax entity type from the list. This selection determines which tax grouping list displays in the tax trial balance and is used when sending balances to the tax return.

Note: The tax entities below have tax grouping lists for tax years 2017 and later. If the selected tax entity type does not have a tax grouping list, then the tax group shows as Unassigned for all accounts in the Tax trial balance.

Corporation (1120)
Partnership/LLC (1065)
S Corporation (1120S)
Non-Profit/Tax Exempt (990)
Individual/Sole Proprietorship (1040)

Decide if you want to use the system-provided financial groups, create a new list from scratch, or from a grouping list template. The system grouping list which can be customized by adding or deleting groups in this list.
- Select Yes if you want to use the system-provided financial groups and you want the system to automatically assign the groups to accounts during import. See Managing Financial Groups for more information.
- Select No if you want to create your own financial grouping list or use a grouping list template. Select No if you want to create your own financial grouping list or use a grouping list template
  Note: If you will be importing the trial balance from a CCH® ProSystem fx® Trial Balance Excel file, then select No; otherwise, you will get a mix of system-provided financial groups and leads from CCH® ProSystem fx® Trial Balance. See Importing from CCH® ProSystem fx® Trial Balance.
Select Yes if this will be a consolidated engagement. Consolidated engagements are made up of subsidiary trial balances with the amounts rolled up to consolidated totals.

For Knowledge Coach modules:

Select the Knowledge Coach title from the list that you would like to use in the engagement.

For all modules:

Click Create.

The new engagement is added to the Engagement List page immediately but is not accessible until the create process completes successfully. You can view progress information in the status message in the top right of the window, or by hovering your pointer over the information badge next to the new engagement.

If the process fails, the status message in the top right will indicate that you should retry creating the engagement, and the newly created engagement is removed from the Engagement List page.