Engagement types & service lines
Assure Pro organizes work in two layers — service lines (broad practice areas) and engagement types (specific work products).
The 3 service lines
Every firm gets these three out of the box:
| Service line | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Tax | Tax returns (federal, state, and local), tax planning, tax resolution, IRS representation, FBAR, R&D credits. |
| Accounting | Bookkeeping (monthly, quarterly, annual, cleanup, catch-up), payroll, controller / CFO services, year-end W-2 / 1099 filings, payroll tax (940, 941). |
| Audit & Assurance | Financial statement audits, reviews, and compilations; EBP audits; Single Audits (Uniform Guidance); Yellow Book; HUD; fund audits; SOC 1 / SOC 2; internal audit; forensic accounting. |
A service line determines:
- Which default pipeline new engagements of that line use.
- How the engagement-type picker is grouped in dropdowns.
- Which default task templates apply per stage.
Service lines aren’t user-editable today — they’re locked at the three above. Engagement types within a service line are fully editable.
The 52 default engagement types
Click Settings → Return types (or Engagement types, depending on your firm’s naming) to see the full list. The defaults are:
Tax (24 types)
| Type | Notes |
|---|---|
| Form 1040 | Individual income tax return |
| Form 1040-SR | Individual return for taxpayers age 65+ |
| Form 1040-NR | Nonresident alien individual return |
| Form 1040-X | Amended individual return |
| Form 1040 with Schedule C | Individual with sole-prop Schedule C |
| Form 1041 | Estate or trust income tax return |
| Form 1065 | Partnership return |
| Form 1120 | C-corp income tax return |
| Form 1120-S | S-corp income tax return |
| Form 1120-F | Foreign corporation US return |
| Form 990 | Tax-exempt organization return |
| Form 990-EZ | Short-form 990 (smaller orgs) |
| Form 990-PF | Private foundation return |
| Form 990-T | Exempt org unrelated business income |
| Form 706 | Estate (and GST) tax return |
| Form 709 | Gift (and GST) tax return |
| Form 5471 | US owner of foreign corporation |
| Form 5472 | Foreign-owned US corporation |
| Form 8865 | US partner of foreign partnership |
| Form 5500 | Employee benefit plan annual return |
| FinCEN 114 (FBAR) | Foreign bank account report |
| State Income Tax | State-level income tax return |
| Local / City Income Tax | City or local tax return |
| Tax Planning & Projection | Non-return tax planning engagement |
| Tax Resolution / IRS Rep | IRS notice or audit representation |
| R&D Tax Credit Study | Research and development credit study |
| Cost Segregation Study | Cost-seg study for accelerated depreciation |
| Sales Tax Filing | Periodic sales and use tax |
| Property Tax — Business Personal | Business personal property rendition |
| State Franchise Tax | State franchise or privilege tax |
Accounting (11 types)
| Type | Notes |
|---|---|
| Monthly Bookkeeping | Recurring monthly bookkeeping |
| Quarterly Bookkeeping | Recurring quarterly bookkeeping |
| Annual Bookkeeping Cleanup | Year-end cleanup and adjustments |
| Catch-up Bookkeeping | Catch-up for prior periods |
| Controller / CFO Services | Outsourced controller or fractional CFO |
| Payroll Services | Payroll processing |
| Form 941 Quarterly Payroll | Federal quarterly payroll tax return |
| Form 940 Annual FUTA | Federal unemployment annual return |
| Form W-2 Filing | Year-end W-2 wage statements |
| Form 1099 Filing | Year-end 1099 information returns |
| Partner Firm Onboarding | Onboarding engagement for a partner firm |
Audit & Assurance (12 types)
| Type | Notes |
|---|---|
| Financial Statement Audit | Audit of financial statements |
| Financial Statement Review | Review-level engagement |
| Financial Statement Compilation | Compilation engagement |
| EBP Audit | Employee benefit plan audit |
| Single Audit | Uniform Guidance single audit |
| Yellow Book Audit | Government Auditing Standards audit |
| HUD Audit | HUD-assisted housing audit |
| Fund Audit | Investment or pooled fund audit |
| Agreed-Upon Procedures | AUP attestation |
| Internal Audit | Internal controls engagement |
| SOC 1 / SOC 2 Audit | SOC examination |
| Forensic Accounting | Forensic investigation |
Picking the right type — common cases
| Situation | Type to pick |
|---|---|
| A standard 1040 for an individual | Form 1040 |
| An S-corp’s 1120S | Form 1120-S |
| A 1040 that includes a sole prop Schedule C — file the engagement as just the 1040 or as the Sch-C variant? | Form 1040 with Schedule C if you want to track Schedule C work distinctly; Form 1040 if you treat Sch C as part of the broader return |
| Monthly bookkeeping for a small business | Monthly Bookkeeping (set up as recurring) |
| Tax planning meeting with a client (no return work) | Tax Planning & Projection |
| Responding to an IRS notice | Tax Resolution / IRS Rep |
| Year 1 of a new audit client | Financial Statement Audit |
| The client only needs a compilation, not an audit | Financial Statement Compilation |
| State filing with extension already filed federally | State Income Tax (the federal extension lives on the federal engagement) |
Customizing types
From Settings → Return types, you can:
- Edit the label and description of any default type.
- Hide a type your firm doesn’t offer — it disappears from the engagement-type picker without affecting any existing engagements.
- Create new firm-custom types for engagements the defaults don’t cover (for example, “Wealth management plan review” or “Multi-state apportionment study”).
- Reorder types within a service line so the ones your firm uses most appear at the top.
Customizations apply only to your firm — they don’t propagate to other Assure Pro customers.
Default types can’t be deleted — only hidden. This is intentional so existing engagements never point to a missing type. Custom firm-created types can be deleted, but only if no engagement uses them.
Mapping legacy return types
If you migrated from another platform that used a simpler return-type set (1040, 1120S, 1065, 1041, 990), Assure Pro maps them to engagement types automatically during migration:
- 1040 → Form 1040
- 1120S → Form 1120-S
- 1065 → Form 1065
- 1041 → Form 1041
- 1120 → Form 1120
- 990 → Form 990
If your migration source had a code Assure Pro doesn’t recognize, those engagements land with a “Migration: Generic engagement” type and you can re-map manually.
Next
- Creating an engagement — picking a type at create time.
- Custom pipelines — each service line has its own default pipeline.
- Settings → Return types — editing the type list.
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