Preparing for Busy Season: Key Considerations

Now is the time of year when many CPAs—especially those in public practice—are gearing up to take on their heaviest workloads. With this in mind, the following article poses some key questions public practitioners should consider as busy season approaches.

These questions are designed to help you not only ensure compliance with professional standards but also protect your personal health and well-being.¹

“Are my engagement letters ready and up to date?”

Although the CPABC Code of Professional Conduct (the CPA Code) does not mandate the use of engagement letters,² it’s advisable to use them—particularly as complaints to the Professional Conduct department often stem from unclear engagement letters or the lack thereof. These letters can ensure a mutual understanding of the work to be performed, support adherence to professional standards, and enhance client relationships. They can also serve as key evidence in client disputes.

Each client engagement letter should be prepared and signed at the beginning of the engagement, and it should stipulate the following:

• The scope of services and the nature and extent of the work;
• Fees, billings, and retainers;
• Timelines and deliverables; and
• Each party’s responsibilities.

We advise against using generic engagement letter templates from manuals or software, as these are rarely optimal. It is best to tailor your letters in clear language for their specific purpose, because when service scope is not clearly defined or extra services are added later, fee disputes can arise. For instance, we’ve received complaints about unfair billings in tax preparation when practitioners have billed for the professional time required to follow up with the CRA after an assessment—all because their engagement letters didn’t account for such contingencies.

A well-written engagement letter may also stipulate:

• The termination provisions;
• Document ownership; and
• A limitation of legal liability.

A termination clause clarifies when either the practitioner or client can end the engagement. When drafting a clause of this kind, note that you should specify the required notification period for termination. This will help to prevent work disruptions, address issues like unbilled time at termination, and protect each party’s interests. For example, a stipulated notification period will help to ensure that clients will not be left in the lurch close to a major deadline, such as a tax filing date, when they may not have sufficient time to retain new professional advisors.

Practitioners should be aware, however, that the CPA Code contains guidance restricting when an auditor may resign from an engagement, regardless of the terms outlined in the engagement letter.³ As stated in the CPA Code:

“As a general rule, the proper course for an appointed auditor to follow is the completion of the auditor’s statutory duties; having been appointed by the shareholders, the auditor has a duty to them and should report as required in the legislation. The auditor should cease to act on behalf of a client only after a successor has been properly appointed and the auditor has been relieved or disqualified. The auditor should never lightly resign an appointment before reporting and should not resign at all before reporting if there is reason to suspect that the auditor’s resignation is required by reason of any impropriety or concealment, upon which it is the auditor’s duty to report.”

The guidance in the CPA Code also states that there may be exceptional circumstances in which an auditor’s resignation is justified—for example, when:

• They’ve lost trust in their client;
• Their independence or objectivity could reasonably be questioned; or
• The client has attempted to induce the performance of illegal, unjust, or fraudulent acts.

With regard to document ownership, we recommend that you outline the ownership rights of engagement documents and differentiate between the finished work product, working papers, and the client’s own documents. This kind of clarity becomes especially important when there are unpaid invoices for the services related to those documents. Generally, it is not appropriate for an accountant to refuse a client’s request to access their original records or to refuse to return these records, even when the accountant’s billings are unpaid.

Lastly, it’s advisable to consider having the client mark their initials next to important clauses in the engagement letter to indicate their review and understanding of these items. This is especially the case for clauses that limit a CPA’s legal liability. Courts have held that CPAs can limit their liability if the limitations are fair and reasonable and were brought to the attention of the client.⁴

Extra tip: CPABC’s member advisory services team encourages practitioners to include a checklist as a supplemental schedule to engagement letters. This checklist should itemize the various services offered by the practitioner; the services that are required can then be checked off, while those that are not required can be left unchecked. Both the practitioner and the client should initial this schedule to ensure that both parties agree on and understand the scope of work.

“Have I reviewed my document retention practices and procedures?”

Rule 218 of the CPA Code (Retention of documentation and working papers) requires members to preserve all relevant documentation, including working papers and records supporting their professional activities. The guidance to the CPA Code recommends that practitioners should retain these records for at least 10 years, though some documents—like financial statements, tax files, and corporate records—may need to be kept indefinitely. This applies to both current and former clients.

Most professionals now maintain their records electronically. In BC, the Electronic Transactions Act allows documents to be managed and stored digitally only, except in the case of certain legal documents, such as wills and powers of attorney, which require paper copies.

Practitioners who use document software and accounting programs to store client records must take care to ensure that clients can obtain copies of their own records when requested and/or required. CPABC has provided guidance on this topic in the Knowledge Base at bccpa.ca/kbase.⁵

For practitioners who still have large volumes of paper records, consider digitizing these well before busy season starts, because the effort involved in digitizing many records at once is significant.

“Are my confidentiality practices up to par?”

Rule 208 of the CPA Code covers confidentiality, a core principle in accounting that requires strict adherence to high standards. Unfortunately, when document volumes become excessive, confidentiality can be compromised. So, as busy season approaches, ask yourself the following:

• Am I sending and storing electronic documents securely using encryption and/or a secure portal?
• Am I keeping physical records secure after hours?
• Do I have strong systems in place to ensure that client files (like T-slips) are protected and won’t be misplaced or mixed up?
• Have I conducted the necessary background checks for any casual staff I plan to hire in peak season?

“What if I’m asked to perform work that falls outside my experience or licensed category?”

Rule 203 of the CPA Code (Professional competence) requires members to sustain their professional competence in all areas of their practice. In other words, practitioners should avoid providing advice or services unless they have the professional knowledge and competence to deal with the challenges of the engagement. For example, a member specializing in tax should not provide assurance services unless they have the necessary training and experience in that area and are properly licensed by CPABC.

Each year, we encounter members who’ve taken on engagements that ultimately prove too challenging for their skills sets—for example, one CPA undertook an engagement that involved reporting on a lawyer’s trust accounts to the Law Society of British Columbia, despite lacking the proper licensing from CPABC.⁶

In another example, a tax practitioner had a client who’d spent several months in Quebec the previous year, triggering the requirement for a Quebec tax return. The tax practitioner was not sufficiently informed about the unique requirements of the Quebec tax system. As a result, they made multiple (and costly to the client) filing errors, which generated a complaint to CPABC.

“Am I prepared for the pressures of busy season? Do I have the capacity?”

Type “busy season burnout” into any search engine and you’ll find many articles, discussion threads, and videos on the subject. It’s a problem many professionals, including CPAs, face.

Several good suggestions from the Illinois CPA Society⁷ include:

• Set boundaries between your personal and professional life (and manage peoples’ expectations). Identify your personal needs—such as time with family, workout time, and minimum rest time—and then keep those commitments.
• Stay healthy, especially when working remotely. For example, instead of brewing a cup of coffee and heading straight to the computer each morning, start your day with a morning workout or walk.
• Prioritize tasks and constantly re-evaluate your priority list. For many people, working from home blurs the line between work hours and personal hours. Creating to-do lists enables you to track your progress and frees you from ruminating over your workload.
• Get help if you start to feel overwhelmed. Consult your supervisor and delegate work to your team as much as possible.

“Am I making full use of CPABC’s resources?”

CPABC also has a variety of resources available throughout the year.

If you have a professional dilemma you’d like to discuss and are concerned about staying onside of the CPA Code, the CPA Act, and/or the CPABC Bylaws, consult CPABC’s professional standards advisors at professionaladvisory@bccpa.ca. Our advisors provide confidential guidance.

If you have personal matters to discuss, be sure to check out the free health and wellness resources offered through CPABC’s TELUS Health One Member Assistance Program (MAP). This confidential support program is available to all CPA members, candidates, and students (and your immediate family members) and includes:

• Tool kits related to family, health, life, money, and work issues;
• One-on-one counselling services, offered outside of the workplace; and
• Access to the CareNow service, which offers a range of programs designed to help with anxiety, depression, stress, and more.

Information on the CPABC MAP is available at bccpa.ca/benefits under “Mental Wellness.”

This article was originally published in the November/December 2025 issue of CPABC in Focus.

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