Practice case — Harrow & Pell, and peer review

A different shape

Kestrel was a ranked choice among five on a table of numbers. Harrow & Pell is a yes-or-no with conditions, and its exhibit is three paragraphs of facts, not a table. The pitfall the concept map names is copying Kestrel's criteria; the stakeholders here produce different ones. You write the whole case cold — stages 1–4 in brief and the memo's opening and next steps — commit it, and only then read the model.

The case — Harrow & Pell CPA

Harrow & Pell CPA is a two-partner firm in Guelph — Maureen Harrow and Sam Pell — with eleven staff, doing review engagements, compilations and tax for owner-managed businesses. You are a junior staff accountant; on Monday 1 December Maureen asks you for a memo to both partners by Monday 8 December.

A prospective client, Bluewater Compute Ltd., a crypto-asset mining operation near Owen Sound, has asked the firm for a review engagement and the corporate tax filing for its 31 December year-end, delivered by 31 January, because its bank needs the reviewed statements for a loan renewal. The client has offered a fee of $48,000; the firm would normally quote about $30,000 for a business of its size. The firm's staff are already booked at 105 % of planned capacity for January to April — tax season. Nobody in the firm has crypto-asset experience: the accounting for mining rewards, wallet balances and the valuation of crypto-assets is new to everyone. In the introductory call, Bluewater's CFO remarked that "the previous accountant was flexible about when mining rewards count as revenue."

Sam has sketched four options: decline; accept as asked, absorbing the work with overtime; accept with a contractor — a CPA with crypto-asset experience is available at about $14,000 for the engagement — and a competence plan for the firm's own staff; accept with a negotiated 28 February deadline, asking the bank whether the renewal can wait. Maureen's note: "I'd like the fee. I don't like the CFO's remark."

Where the marks are

The stakeholders are the partners (fee, reputation, the licence), the eleven staff at 105 %, the client and its bank (statements by 31 January), the contractor, and the public and the profession, who rely on a review engagement meaning what it says. From them, the criteria are not Kestrel's: professional risk (competence and the pressure toward a misleading treatment), capacity, fee and margin, client relationship and future revenue, timing feasibility. Two planted ethical issues, both CPA Ontario Code matters at time of writing (2026): taking an engagement the firm is not competent to perform — rule 203, professional competence — and the CFO's hint, which is pressure toward a revenue treatment that could make the statements misleading — rule 205, false or misleading documents and oral representations. Both belong inside the analysis, under professional risk, and both become conditions in the recommendation: a competence plan that is real (the contractor) and an engagement letter that fixes the revenue-recognition basis before work starts. The fee is a fact, not a criterion that outranks the licence: $48,000less$14,000 for the contractor is $34,000, still above the normal quote.

Then feedback, by rubric line

Kritik marks your feedback on a peer's case as well as your case. Smith's rule for constructive criticism is that it is specific, focused on improvement, with clear instructions for what exactly the receiver must do, delivered with sincere praise around it; R-feedback makes it five lines: names the rubric line · cites the place in the text · says what would earn the line · tone respectful · notes one thing that worked. A sample, on a stage 2 that listed issues as topics:

> The ranking of the four issues by impact (R-psp-2, line 3) is clear and I agree with it — the audit failure second is right. On line 1, each issue stated in one sentence with a fact: the second issue reads "Supplier quality" with no sentence and no number; "Cedar & Co.'s defect rate is 4.5 %, the highest of the five, and its on-time rate 82 %" would earn the line. The same fix applies to issue 4.

One thing that worked, the line, the place, the sentence that would earn it, and a tone that assumes competence. Good job, very thorough earns almost nothing: no line, no place, no fix.

And self-grading

Before submitting any case, grade it against the rubric line by line — the text, not your intent. If the line says assumptions written down and you know what you assumed but the page does not say, the line is lost. Read your case as the marker will: with the rubric beside it and no memory of what you meant.

Now write it cold

The first exam is the whole Harrow & Pell response; the second is your feedback on a supplied peer paragraph. Commit each before reading its model, then self-grade.