White-label technical accounting support for accounting and audit firms

Six kinds of work fit this service. The right-hand column shows who concludes, because the firm always does.

Where a memo depends on a fair value, the value comes from management or its valuation specialist. Finbryn supplies no valuation opinion.

Independence belongs to the firm and stays with the firm. Outsourcing the drafting does not move it. For nonattest services to an attest client, the AICPA Code's general requirements (ET 1.295.040) call for the client to assume all management responsibilities, oversee the service by designating an individual with suitable skills, knowledge or experience, evaluate the adequacy and results of the service and accept responsibility for the results. If the firm is the provider of record, those safeguards apply to its work, whoever helps draft it.

That is why the limit above is written the way it is. Finbryn will not draft a memo where the firm would then audit Finbryn's own work. The table shows how that plays out.

On an audit or review engagement, anyone who consults with the engagement team on a technical question is treated by the AICPA Code as in a position to influence it. Before a read starts, Finbryn confirms in writing that it does no work for the audited company and that the people assigned hold no financial interest in it, and the firm decides whether that meets its independence policy.

Independence conclusions are the firm's to reach and record. Where the firm is unsure, it asks its own technical or ethics lead before the engagement starts, and Finbryn will hold the work until the answer is in.

AICPA Statement on Quality Management Standards No. 1 (SQMS No. 1) took effect on December 15, 2025, and firms must evaluate their systems of quality management within one year of implementation, or by December 15, 2026. It applies to firms that perform accounting and auditing engagements. Commentary on the standard notes that its resources component reaches beyond staff to technology, intellectual resources and service providers, and that the standards put more emphasis on oversight of outside providers.

A firm that uses Finbryn therefore has a vendor to document. On request Finbryn supplies a written scope and engagement terms, a confidentiality agreement, a description of how client files are stored and who can open them (the security page lists what Finbryn describes publicly), a list of the tools used, and a prepared-by log for each deliverable. The firm decides whether that is enough for its system and records the decision. Finbryn does not claim to meet any firm's quality management criteria on the firm's behalf.

The AICPA's consulting standard, CS Section 100, applies four general professional standards to consulting services: professional competence, due professional care, planning and supervision, and sufficient relevant data, plus three consulting standards: client interest, understanding with the client and communication with the client. A firm that hands drafting to an outside team still owns each of them. In practice that means the firm scopes the question, reads the draft critically and checks that the facts and data the draft relies on are complete.

Two confidentiality rules matter before client files move. ET 1.150.040 has the firm inform the client, preferably in writing, before confidential information goes to a third-party service provider, and an engagement letter clause is the usual route. ET 1.700.040 expects a confidentiality agreement with the provider or the client's consent. If a tax return or return information is involved, IRC section 7216 and its consent rules apply as well; the IRS Section 7216 Information Center explains them. Finbryn signs the confidentiality agreement and works with the firm's engagement-letter language; it does not decide what the firm tells its clients.

Work is delivered under the firm's name for the firm's CPA or engagement partner to review, adopt and sign. Finbryn does not sign engagements and will not draft a memo for an engagement where the firm would be auditing Finbryn's own work.

Finbryn does not issue an opinion, assurance or valuation, and does not appear as a signatory on any firm deliverable. It does not provide independence advice to the firm. It does not accept an engagement that depends on a conclusion the firm has not yet reached. If the firm needs an auditor-side actuarial opinion or a pension valuation, those come through the auditor-side actuarial review, under that page's own signer rules.