Caseware launches engagement review agent for auditors

Caseware has launched its Engagement Review Agent for auditors, initially for customers in the Netherlands.

The software sits within an audit engagement and is designed to help reviewers spot inconsistencies, missing information and other issues across workpapers, checklists and financial statements. It examines linked documents and produces findings for auditors to assess, while leaving decisions and approvals to the engagement team.

Engagement review is one of the most time-consuming stages of an audit. Reviewers must test whether risk assessments match planned procedures, whether materiality calculations are supported and whether conclusions remain consistent across connected files. Late changes to an engagement can create gaps or contradictions that are difficult to trace across dozens of documents.

The agent can review a whole engagement, selected phases or individual workpapers. It is designed to flag conflicts between planned procedures and documented conclusions, checklist responses that do not match supporting workpapers, missing references, incomplete conclusions, possible discrepancies in materiality calculations, absent sign-offs and exposure of sensitive personal information.

It also checks whether an apparent issue has already been resolved elsewhere in the file before reporting it. Caseware said it searches related workpapers, later conclusions and existing review notes so auditors can focus on matters that still need attention.

Within workflow

Findings are presented in a consolidated report that points users to relevant workpapers and supporting evidence. Auditors can move directly to the underlying documents to verify each observation and decide whether further investigation is required.

The agent runs in read-only mode within Caseware Cloud and can be started through Verity Chat or from an engagement phase. It does not alter workpapers, approve documentation or make audit decisions.

The release extends the company's Verity AI agent suite, which operates inside assurance and financial reporting engagements. It follows the earlier introduction of Risk Suggestion Agent, broadening Caseware's use of AI from identifying risk areas to assisting with engagement review.

Caseware, which serves more than 23,000 firms in over 130 countries, is positioning the Verity line as part of a broader move to embed AI tools into accounting and audit workflows. The company said the Engagement Review Agent can also work alongside other Verity functions by turning review questions into client queries and converting items for the engagement team into issues in the engagement file.

David Marquis, Chief Executive Officer at Caseware, said early testers had reported time savings when using the product.

"Audit quality depends on understanding how every part of an engagement fits together," Marquis said.

He added: "Our early testers remarked that the difference was immediate. Caseware Verity already has the engagement context, so they review a purpose-built agent's work instead of prompting from scratch. It flags conflicts across workpapers and missed items, saving roughly three to four hours per engagement.

"With Engagement Review Agent, we're helping auditors identify issues that might otherwise be difficult or time-consuming to uncover, giving them a more complete view of their work while keeping professional judgment and accountability firmly in their hands."

Marquis also linked the launch to the company's wider strategy for AI in audit and reporting work.

"Caseware Verity and the Caseware AI platform bring together our decades of deep domain expertise with the latest agentic technology to create powerful new efficiencies, while maintaining governance and compliance," he said.

He added: "The Engagement Review Agent is another step in our vision to enable a fully agentic audit and financial reporting workflow. Together with our customers, we are transforming how audits get done."