Xpitax News Articles
On August 9, 2004 the AICPA issued an exposure draft that focuses on disclosure to clients and the responsibility for maintaining confidentiality of client data.
Our summary of this is:
- Firms need to inform clients before sharing data that they may use a third party to help with their services.
- Firms are responsible for all client work done, whether the work is performed by in-house personnel or a third party provider.
- Firms who share client data with any third party need to enter into a written agreement with them to maintain the confidentiality of client data.
In our opinion, the reasonable and practical approach ALL firms should use should be to contain language similar to this as a standard part of their engagement letters. "In order to better serve your needs, our firm may use a third party to assist in the delivery of your services. Any third party service provider we use will have already met our quality standards and has agreed that any information shared with them is confidential and can only be used for the purposes of assisting our clients. The use of third parties is a standard practice in many professions. Our firm has the final responsibility for any services delivered to you and we have internal review standards that have been in place to ensure the highest quality product."
Click here to view the the complete article.
http://www.aicpa.org/members/div/ethics/ed_outsourcing.htm