Accelerating audit efficiency: How Sensiba LLP streamlined technical research and document management with CoCounsel Audit

Challenge: Time-consuming research slows audit teams

The audit team at Sensiba faced several time-consuming challenges that impacted efficiency and consistency.

One of the most significant challenges was how time-consuming technical research had become. Staff often spent 30 to 45 minutes digging through accounting guidance and drafting accounting memos from scratch. This extensive research time led to delays in project timelines and potential inconsistencies in how different team members approached similar issues.

In venture capital audits, Limited Partnership Agreements (LPAs) serve as foundational documents outlining the economics and operations of a fund. These lengthy legal documents are essential for validating whether investments and capital allocations align with agreed-upon terms. Traditionally, summarizing LPAs was an extremely time-consuming process, requiring manual extraction of key terms for audit testing and financial disclosures. Similar challenges existed with other foundational documents like certificates of incorporation for technology companies and adoption agreements for employee benefit plan audits.

Beyond operational challenges, Sensiba faced a broader strategic challenge: how to embrace AI in a responsible way that would encourage staff to apply professional judgment rather than blindly rely on technology. With other technical implementations happening simultaneously, there was concern about "change fatigue" from introducing yet another technology into the workflow.

“One of the most meaningful impacts of this software on our firm is to give us the real opportunity to embrace AI in a responsible way. The mindset around AI is just as important as the tool itself, and CoCounsel helps us to shift that mindset.”

Carson Chen
Senior Audit Manager, Sensiba LLP.

Solution: CoCounsel saves time and increases efficiency

CoCounsel addressed Sensiba's challenges through two primary capabilities: intelligent technical research and customizable document analysis templates.

CoCounsel alleviates research bottlenecks by providing quick and structured answers to technical questions. Instead of spending time researching a complex accounting issue, audit staff can now find solid responses within minutes, with relevant guidance displayed directly alongside the response. The citation-backed answers ensure that staff aren't blindly trusting AI output — they can see the underlying accounting standards and guidance that support each answer.

This approach reinforces Sensiba's commitment to professional judgment. As Carson Chen, Senior Audit Manager, explains: "CoCounsel is like my assistant or staff that actually understands accounting and tax language. You can ask it complex technical questions in plain English and it will give you a very clear citation-backed answer, often with the relevant ASC guidance on the right side. It's pretty fast, consistent, and it helps you to solve problems while learning along the way."

The audit team created workspace templates specifically designed for their most common document types. For LPAs in venture capital audits, these templates allow the team to extract key economic terms from lengthy legal documents within minutes. The automated process generates consistent summaries that are ready for review quickly, enabling easy comparison against prior versions or amendments.

The success with LPA templates led to expansion into other audit areas. The team created similar templates for certificates of incorporation (for technology companies) and adoption agreements (for employee benefit plan audits). The use of CoCounsel workspaces proved particularly valuable because keyword searches alone wouldn't work effectively on these complex documents — CoCounsel's AI-powered understanding could identify relevant information even when terminology varied.

The rollout of CoCounsel was deliberately timed for a busy period (January) so the team could learn using the developed workspaces while engaged with their client work. Rather than enforcing use, the focus was on educating staff about the tool's existence and potential applications, allowing them to explore and integrate it into their workflows naturally.

This low-effort approach proved highly effective. Unlike some AI tools with specific, limited terms of use, CoCounsel offered broader applications. The introduction felt minimally disruptive because CoCounsel served as an aid to completing existing workpapers rather than dictating a new approach. This flexibility was key to realizing strong adoption across the department.