Engagement scoping brief
Planning an engagement properly means reading last year's file and the correspondence since, which is exactly the work that gets skipped when the diary is full. This agent reads both and drafts the scoping brief: what has changed at the client, what should be in scope, which specialists to involve, and where last year ran over. The partner still sets the scope.
Step by step
Connect the engagement archive
Prior year files, working papers and the client correspondence since sign-off, connected read-only.
Agree the brief's headings
We use the planning document your firm already writes, so nobody has to learn a new format to read the output.
It reads the prior year
Scope, judgements, review points and anything that overran are pulled out of last year's file rather than recalled from memory.
It finds what has changed
New activities, transactions, group changes and anything else the correspondence records is set against last year's scope.
It drafts scope and risks
The brief comes back written, with the specialist areas flagged and every point linked to the paper it came from.
The engagement partner approves
Scope is only set once the partner has read the brief and signed it off. The agent proposes; the partner decides.
Exactly what this agent can see, touch and change
The same five controls sit behind every Askollo agent. These are this one's settings — visible before you build it, not buried in an admin screen afterwards.
Context
What reaches the modelManagers and partners planning a recurring engagement, particularly on clients where the relationship has outlasted the person who last ran the file.
Escalation
When it asks a personThe engagement partner approves the brief before the work is scoped or quoted
Applications & Rights
Which tools it uses, and what it may do in each
SharePointRead only
GmailRead only
Google DriveReadWrites newCreates new records or documents. Never edits, moves or deletes anything that was already there.Verification
How you know it’s rightEvery claim links to the document it came from. A statement the agent cannot cite does not make it into the output — which is what makes the result reviewable in minutes rather than re-read end to end.
Who it’s for
Managers and partners planning a recurring engagement, particularly on clients where the relationship has outlasted the person who last ran the file.
What you’ll need
- Prior year files connected
- Client correspondence readable
- Your planning format agreed
- An engagement partner to approve
What you get
- A drafted scoping brief
- A change list since last sign-off
- A flagged list of specialist areas
What it doesn’t do
It drafts from the file and the correspondence you connect. It does not price the engagement, does not accept a client, and does not run identity or anti-money-laundering checks.
We build the first one with you
Not a template you configure alone. We sit with your team, build it on real data, and hand over the controls.
Scope
One session with the people who actually do the work. We agree what the agent reads, what it may write, and who approves.
Co-build
Built on your own data, not a sandbox. You watch it being made, so you know why it behaves the way it does.
Handover
You own the controls. Change the context, tighten the rights, move the approval gate — without coming back to us.
Parts of the work currently spread across the categories below. It does not replace any of those products outright.
Frequently asked
Does it decide what is in scope?
It proposes, with the prior year and the correspondence as evidence. Scope carries professional and commercial consequences, so the partner signs it and the agent has no route around that.
What about a first-year client?
There is no prior file to read, so the brief is built from onboarding material and correspondence and is honest about being thinner. It is most valuable in the second year onwards, when there is a file worth reading.
Can it flag where we lost money last year?
It can surface where the file records overruns, scope creep or repeated review points, because those tend to be written down somewhere. Turning that into a fee conversation is the partner's job.
How does it start?
In the co-build session we run it against engagements you have already planned this year and compare its brief with the one your manager wrote. That comparison sets the trust level before it touches live planning.