Chapter 4: Engagement Template Management

Summary

Now that you've learned the basic functions and features of Engagements Templates and how they'll be used to Create and Send Engagement Letters, you're ready to delve into how to actually use this tool.

This chapter is intended for the "Engagement Template Manager" - those firm staff tasked with creating Engagement Letter Templates in accordance with your firm's requirements.

Creating a new Engagement Letter Template from scratch can feel daunting if you've never done it before. Sure, you know how to use the tools, but how should you actually create your own letter in your system? 

Our suggestion? Open the firm portal in one tab and have this User Guide opened in another. Follow along as you're reading. 

The following sections in this chapter cover not necessarily how to use the tools, but rather how best to use, organize, and manage the various tools and functions of Engagement Templates.

Think of these as best practices and suggestions, keeping in mind that how you manage Engagement Templates at your firm is ultimately up to you.

We're also here to help. During Implementation, we'll help you build your first letter in your system so chances are you've already got something in your system to start with.

 

Included in this article:

• Suggested Planning & Collaboration Methods
  • Letter Components Breakdown
  • Content Management
  • Workflow Planning
    • Locking Content
    • Locking Sections
• Formatting Best Practices
  • Label and Naming Suggestions
  • Copy/Paste Suggestions
    
    • Plain Text/Clear Formatting
    • Edit Source Code to add/remove spaces or line breaks
  • Use "insert image" for Custom Letterhead, signatures, and more

Suggested Planning & Collaboration Methods

Letter Components Breakdown

The best way to build engagement templates in Aiwyn is to first build yourself a planning tool and break down each letter into their components.

Attached to this article (at the very bottom) is an example "Engagement Template Management" tool you can use to create your own method for easily planning and building your letters in Aiwyn.

 

Use this tool, or other methods, to find commonalities and sections within your letters that are shared. Very often these could be general terms and conditions, firm responsibilities regarding client data and confidentiality, and basic things like Introduction or the Client Signature section.

The goal isn't to create a one to one match of section templates in Aiwyn to the specific "sections" within your actual letter.

Conversely, you shouldn't create one big section template in Aiwyn that has the entire contents of your letter in a single section template.

You should also keep in mind that you can use specific section templates to build a multitude of workflows intended to assist the eventual firm engagements users in creating, quickly editing, and even "approving" Engagement Letters using your Templates.

 

Strike a balance by looking at what areas of your letter could be a single block of content that you can plug into one or more of your 

Engagement Letter Templates 

 

For example, I have the following components (paragraphs) of my letters that can stay in the exact order as listed, they rarely need to be updated or the order of them changed from letter to letter and they need to be on every single letter I send to Clients from my firm:

1. Electronic Data Security
2. Confidentiality
3. Corporate Transparency Act

Each of these outlined topics within my source engagement letters don't have to be individual Sections in Aiwyn.

Instead, I'd like to combine each of these into one Section Template under a Section Type I'll call "Firm Responsibilities" 

This Section Type label is internal, clients will only see the actual letter content, so create section types that make sense for you and can help you to know at a glance what type of Section Template(s) are classified under that Section Type.

 

Example showing a Section Template, creating a new template assigned to the "Firm Responsibilities" Section type. Since this section is intended to be on all letters, we labeled it "All"

 

 

Example showing the main Section Templates list, with our new Section Template shown. 

While the "Default" template name indicates a section template in this list is the fallback Section Template to use for a given Section Type, the "All" template name indicates it should go on all of my firm's letters.

By being consistent with naming structure, and documenting the work in the Engagement Template Management planning tool along the way, you will be better equipped to build new Engagement Letter Templates quickly and with consistency in letter structure, format, and required content.

 

Example image directly below showing the Firm Responsibilities Section Type added to an Engagement Letter Template, with the "All" Section Template added and locked - meaning the chosen section template cannot be changed to a different section template of the same section type by any user when using this letter template to create a new Engagement Letter to send to Client(s):

 

 

Example showing preview of new Engagement Letter for a Client using the Letter Template from previous image. We can see our Section Type "Firm Responsibilities" in the list of Sections and the actual content in the letter preview seen by firm portal user while creating/editing the Client Engagement.

 

Content Management

 

Workflow Planning

 

Locking Content

Locking Sections

 

Formatting Best Practices

Label and Naming Suggestions

 

Copy/Paste Suggestions

When creating a new engagement letter, go to the Settings section of the Firm Portal and select Section Templates. Select "Create Section Template" button.

 

 

 

Paste as Plain Text or Clear Formatting

Copying text from a Word Document is certainly the first place to start when building your letter. Open up an existing letter, copy the section, and paste it into the content box of a new (or existing) Section Template. Remember, the Section Templates are what truly drive the content of the letter.

Paste as Plain Text (on PC it is 'ctrl+shift+v')

Pasting from text copied from a Word Document can some get skewed when pasted into a cloud based rich text formatter such as in the firm portal. If you paste text copied from Word and notice too many spaces between paragraphs, or lists that didn't paste quite as expected, it's best instead to paste the text as Plain Text and instead format the text using the rich text formatting tools in the bottom toolbar.

 

 

Edit Source Code

You may also find it easier to adjust the formatting by editing the Source Code. 

1. Select the <> icon in the bottom tool bar of the Section Template Content box

2. Use simple HTML bracket adjustments such as removing extra '<p>' paragraph spaces, removing extra breaks '<br>' and so on

 

Example Scenario

I want to remove the space between these two lines in the Section Template, but still have the text on the next line with no spacing:

1. Select the <> icon from the bottom tool bar to access the Source Code editor.

2. Delete the Paragraph code brackets and replace with the Brake code bracket instead

 

3. Save changes and view updated Content which is what renders on the Letter when viewed:

 

 

Next: Chapter 5: Data Management and Mapping