Silverfin training for admin staff

Introduction

This plan has been designed to introduce Silverfin to those admin staff who are involved in creating accounts packs for client approval, filing accounts to companies house or producing final accounts for client retention for clients whose accounts are prepared within Silverfin. This guide is intended to introduce admin staff on 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).  

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 admin 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, here's are an introduction video recorded by Silverfin covering Home Screen Navigation

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 accounts and completion stages as well as the 'Documents' and 'Export' functions on the top menu are the key areas for admin staff.

Producing Export Bundles (including accounts)

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

Silverfin can produce standard export bundles / packs in PDF format containing any information that it held within the system and these are extremely flexible and configurable.  There are standard export 'bundles' available for accounts (FRS105/FRS1021a/FRS102/LLP/Partnerships/Sole Trade) as well as FC specific bundles such as packs for clients, packs for partner or tax review.

There is a specific help article here with full details how to produce a bundle / pack, modifying the structure, including documents already produced (e.g. draft accounts) and saving a pack to documents.  Using this function the accounts or approval packs can be produced by selecting the appropriate bundle/pack.

Generating an accounts export (Draft / Final and Full / Filleted / Abridged)

Each client having accounts produced within Silverfin will have an accounts workflow showing on the Client home screen and this will normally be workflow 3 and reflect the type of client e.g. 3. FRS102/FRS1021a.

Selecting the accounts workflow will list the specific templates that make up the notes within the accounts that will have been completed by the preparer as applicable.  The specific template in the accounts workflow that controls whether the accounts produced are either Full or Final and the options of Full, Full without detailed P&L, Abridged or Filleted is the Overview template.  The following options are at the top of the template

Any bundles / packs created will use these settings. For example, when the Draft / Final is set to Draft there will be ‘Draft’ watermarked across the accounts produced. When final this will be removed however the date of approval and signer details will be completed. The format of accounts will reflect this setting when the bundle is run. Prior to filing at companies house the ‘Final Financial Statement’ must be selected along with ‘Filleted’ or ‘Abridged’ as applicable.

Producing an ixbrl tagged file and filing accounts to companies house

There is a specific help article on filing accounts to companies house here which also covers downloading and saving an ixbrl file.

An important point with this is the settings in the accounts Overview template (above) which control the format of the accounts. 

Completion

6.1 - Completion – Please now view the video here (3 mins).

Interactive exercise: Have a look around the completion section familiarising yourself with the documents and the checklists.