Silverfin training for tax staff

Introduction

This plan has been designed to introduce Silverfin to those tax staff who are involved in reviewing or preparing tax computations for clients whose accounts are prepared within Silverfin. There is no current plan to replace Alphatax or Digita for the preparation of tax computations, so the process for calculating tax liabilities will remain unaltered. This guide is intended to introduce tax staff how to access Silverfin and look up the relevant information. It is not intended to explain Silverfin's functionality in any detail as anyone who uses Silverfin will have received separate full training (for information, the other courses can be seen here).  

Note: it is possible that some tax staff will not have to access Silverfin as data can be exported from Silverfin directly for Alphatax (in iXBRL tagged format) and Digita via exported pdf. All accounts' preparers have had training on these functions. 

As we have developed Silverfin, we have found it to be very flexible with many useful and different ways of undertaking common tasks. Whilst we have tailored it significantly for FC, we would welcome all further suggestions as to how we can refine the firm’s approach and use of Silverfin as we go forward – this will obviously be more relevant in our first year as we roll out Silverfin and we continue to learn how it functions.

Before we start explaining Silverfin, it is important to understand that whilst Silverfin has been designed for the majority of our clients, there are a number of clients types and sectors that will not convert to Silverfin at day one. These are covered in this article and include audit clients, trusts, doctors, solicitors, etc. We will be keeping this guide up to date as we introduce new clients types into Silverfin over the next year. 

Training

Before we start therefore, please can you:

  1. Make sure you have received emails providing access to Silverfin and links to introduction videos.

  2. Can actually have access to Silverfin and see a screen similar to the below - obviously if you are reading this within the FC Help pages in Silverfin, you have already achieved this!

If you are struggling to access Silverfin please follow this link https://francisclark.getsilverfin.com/ (or the link in the left hand screen of Frank). If you are within Citrix, this should automatically log you in. If you are asked to login then you should use your usual FC login details. You should save the Silverfin FC webpage as a Bookmark or Favourite on your toolbar to facilitate the logging in process. Please note you should use the Microsoft Chrome browsers to use Silverfin, as Internet Explorer does not support all of its functionality. If you are still encountering issues, please email Adrian Logan.

General familiarity with Silverfin

Before we turn specifically to the tax process, you should run through the below steps to learn the basics of Silverfin.

1) Watch the general FC introduction video here (8 mins)

2) Learn how to access the FC Help pages within Silverfin (in priority to the more general Silverfin help function) by clicking on the below symbol located at the top right of any Silverfin screen and selecting   PKF FC Help Site:   

This is your main support facility and we have extensive FC tailored guides to nearly everything relevant within Silverfin and this is then supplemented by the Silverfin help desk, accessed through the same symbol.

3) It will also be useful to scan the terminology ( here) and symbology ( here) guides in the FC help pages to start to acclimatise to a new vocabulary.

Navigation

In terms of navigating through Silverfin, it operates in a normal browser window (Chrome is recommended) and can work inside or outside of Citrix, although access to other work files will only be within Citrix. Please now view the overview video by Silverfin here. We would then highlight:
  1. that the FC screen is slightly different from the Silverfin standard with the Silverfin logo button replaced by a PKF FC button (top left) that will bring you back to the FC home page.  
  2. the ability to jump straight to clients or reconciliations though the use of Ctrl J - this will bring up a search box that then lists out all clients or reconciliation in the current client that contain the searched term (note if the browser window goes to a download page when you press Ctrl-J, this means you were not actually in the Silverfin site when you pressed the keys - you need to click on the Silverfin site in the browser window first and then press Ctrl-J); and
  3. the use of new Tabs/Windows on the same client to show, for instance, journals, review points and trial balance at the same time. This can be done through right clicking on a link and selecting Open in a New Tab/Window. Silverfin operates though a browser and works best with having multiple windows open. You should remember to press on Refresh if you work in one window and return to another, but having multiple Tabs open will allow you to work much more efficiently - during our testing, our testers requested the ability to be able to view a TB (with adjustments) at all times and this is now possible. However, be careful of using Silverfin in half of the screen - it works better formatting wise if you use a full screen.
  4. You can print out any screen by Right Click and select print (the formatting for printing generally is however variable).
  5. You can click on any text or number that is underlined and in blue to go to an analysis of that topic, as you have done in this guide. 

To allow you to see a live (albeit test) client you should have access to a completed file that can be found under "FC Test Company Limited- complete"  and gives you an idea of how a completed file looks. You should not alter items here but simply use it to see how.

Finally, there are a set of introduction videos recorded by Silverfin:

  1. Home Screen Navigation
  2. Working papers {known as 2:Preparation workflow for FC}

that are not required viewing, but may be useful and we would suggest that if you get lost or struggle in the below training that you take time to watch these.

Overview

As you can see from any client home screen (use Ctrl-J, type "FC Test Company" and select the test company from the drop down  list), there are four parts (or workflows) to most Silverfin files - Planning, Preparation, Accounts and Completion. The second stage is the key stage for tax reviewers and comprises what used to be held in our old Excel client files. However, it is first key to understand the communication process within any file. Therefore please now view the video here (12 mins) which gives an overview of how to raise and clear review points (including points for partners) within a file. This will allow you to be able to communicate within Silverfin on any review points or comms you need to raise.

Please now also view this video on document storage so you can understand how to access documents held within Silverfin.

Hopefully the above will have given you the ability to navigate Silverfin and learn some of the basic operations. We now expand on tax interaction below but we would reiterate the use of the PKF FC Help pages within Silverfin as covered above and should be the first and primary source for help (note that this training guide is contained within this help section). 

Tax involvement assessment

During the preparation phase of the accounts process, the preparer will have made an assessment of the need for tax interaction by completing the Tax Risk Assessment reconciliation.  There is a guide to this here and you can access this from the client home screen by selecting workflow 2: Preparation and selecting Tax Risk Assessment as below:

The conclusion from this form is:

You should access and review this checklist as part of your review process - there is also a question at the end of this checklist that will need completing as below:

Tax interaction

You will be provided with information by the preparer depending upon the nature of the client (e.g. IXBRL tagged Alphatax export, draft accounts, disallowed expenses schedules, etc). Your main use of Silverfin will then be to access any supporting information that you may need. The majority of this may relate to items such as the fixed asset register, analysis of certain profit and loss items, etc. All of these can be accessed through 2: Preparation  workflow, i.e. the same place as the Tax Risk Assessment form above.

The reconciliations are slightly different for each other but are fairly easy to read an understand. Where the reconciliation has a yellow star next to it, the preparer will have undertaken an exercise on that balance and the results of this will be shown at the bottom of the reconciliation itself, so could include:

1) Fixed Assets Register reconciliation - analysis of the fixed assets

2) Stock - stock list analysed or attached (remember the paperclip from the documents video above)

3) Trade Debtors - aged analysis of debtors analysed or attached 

Where the reconciliation you are interested in looking at has a grey star next to it, this means the nominal code balance has not be analysed. However, where Silverfin has a sync to Xero, Sage and QuickBooks or a detailed export from others software packages, you can still see more details - go into the relevant reconciliation and you will find a button described as View Ledger as below:

This will expand out the Ledger box and show the detail behind that balance (to the extent it is available from the original accounting software). This will include access to original documentation such as invoices that have been attached within Xero - see here.

Finally, where there has bene a specific exercise within that client to identify disallowable expenses, there will be a summary of these at the bottom of the  2: Preparation workflow (called "Summary of disallowed income and expenses") and these are linked

Support and questions

As for all users the primary sources of help should be in the FC Help articles - see here for other sources of help. 

Round up

You have now completed the training for tax staff exercise. Please remember that this is a new system and it will take some time to get used to. Also note we can adapt it extensively if needed, so please now take a few minutes to reflect on this training and let us know:

  1. if anything in this course didn't make sense; or
  2. where you think we could improve Silverfin.