CCH Central 2026.3 Release Notes
CCH Central 2026.3 Release Notes
Prerequisites
Installing CCH Central 2026.3
This release is installed using the Central Suite Installer. This ensures that all prerequisites are in place and that all the products for which you are licenced are installed in the correct sequence.
Software Enhancements
Assignments - Bulk update Office and Department
Users can now perform a bulk update of the Office and Department fields for assignments. In Step 1 of the bulk update wizard, Office and Department are now available as selectable fields. Once selected, users can update these fields across multiple assignments in a single operation.
CCH iFirm Integration
Record deletion from CCH Central to CCH iFirm
Contacts and clients that are linked to CCH iFirm can now be deleted directly from CCH Central.
When a record with a CCH iFirm ID is selected for deletion, the following warning message is displayed advising users that any associated data held within CCH iFirm, such as AML, Personal Tax, MTD, Accounts Production and other CCH iFirm applications, must be exported and deleted from CCH iFirm before proceeding.
Selecting Yes will continue with the deletion process.
Selecting No cancels the process.
Where the record has existing data within CCH Central, the standard CCH Central deletion rules still apply. For example, Personal Tax returns must be deleted; Accounts Production accounting years must be removed; Document Management documents must be destroyed; there must be no WIP or debt in Practice Management, and the client must be in a closed accounting period; and there must not be any open assignments. If these conditions are not met, the deletion will not proceed.
As part of this enhancement, an additional row is displayed at the top within the standard Delete Client Data window whenever a CCH iFirm ID is present. This row, Data deleted for CCH iFirm contacts, indicates the status of the CCH iFirm deletion process. If all CCH Central deletion criteria are satisfied, the deletion proceeds as normal. If the record does not currently meet the CCH Central deletion requirements, the deletion remains pending, and the row displays a status indicator. Hovering over the indicator displays the following message:
The client does not currently meet CCH Central's deletion criteria.
Warning: If records within CCH iFirm have not been exported and deleted before running the deletion process, those records will no longer be accessible once the CCH Central contact or client has been deleted.
Address - Country drop-down selection
To support the address requirements of CCH iFirm, CCH Central address maintenance has been enhanced to include a Country field when adding or editing an address. Users can select a country from a drop-down list, with the field providing context-sensitive search functionality that lets them type the first few characters of the country name to quickly locate and select the required value. For convenience, United Kingdom is displayed as the first option in the list.
The Country drop-down has also been added to the Find New screens to help ensure address information is captured correctly at the point of creation.
If a user attempts to migrate a contact or client to CCH iFirm and the address does not include a Country, a validation message is displayed in the CCH iFirm Console, advising the user that the Country must be populated before the address migration can proceed.
Data Health tab
The Data Health tab has been expanded to include several new validation and maintenance utilities designed to help identify and resolve common data integrity issues. The following options are now available:
- Contact - Missing Office/Department
- CCH iFirmID mismatch
- Enable extra logging
- Data/Team Security re-sync
Users can select the required option, then click Run to perform the corresponding validation or maintenance process.
Contact - Missing Office/Department
A new validation process has been introduced to help identify and resolve contacts where the Office or Department is missing. Historically, when records were imported using partner products, some contact records may not have had an Office or Department assigned. The new Contact - Missing Office/Department utility compares contact and client records within the database and identifies records where the contact is missing an Office or Department value. When the process runs, any mismatches are displayed within a results grid.
When discrepancies exist, users can select one or more records, right-click, and choose Resolve Issue to update the missing information. Once the issue is resolved, the corresponding row (s) are automatically removed from the grid.
Click Yes to proceed, or No to return to the grid.
Once the missing information has been updated, the following confirmation message is displayed:
If no missing values are found, a message is displayed to advise that no issues were identified.
CCH iFirmID mismatch
A new validation and repair utility has been introduced to help identify records that have become unlinked between CCH Central and CCH iFirm. In rare circumstances, records successfully migrated to CCH iFirm may lose their linkage to the corresponding record in CCH Central (e.g., a CCH Central DB restore). This utility compares the two systems to identify records that exist in CCH iFirm but no longer have a valid link in CCH Central. Any discrepancies found are displayed within a results grid, allowing users to review the affected records.
To ensure the process can communicate with CCH iFirm, validation checks have been implemented. If no employee is logged in to the CCH iFirm Console, or if the user's authentication token has expired, a message is displayed advising the user to log in to the CCH iFirm Console before the validation and repair process can run.
When mismatches occur, Users can select one or more records, right-click, and choose Resolve Issue to re-establish the missing link. Once the issue is resolved, the corresponding row (s) are automatically removed from the grid.
If no mismatches are found, a message is displayed to advise that no issues were identified.
Enable extra logging
A new Enable Extra Logging option has been added to simplify the process of collecting diagnostic information when requested by CCH Support. Previously, enabling additional logging required users to manually edit the clientframework.exe.config file. Users can now enable enhanced logging directly from within CCH Central by selecting the Enable Extra Logging button.
Once enabled, the option automatically changes to Disable Extra Logging, providing a simple way to switch the functionality on or off. Because enhanced logging captures a significantly larger volume of information, it is recommended that users disable the feature once the required actions have been completed and the necessary diagnostic data has been captured.
Data/Team Security Re-sync
A new Data/Team Security Re-sync option has been added to allow firms to manually re-synchronise security settings from CCH Central to CCH iFirm. This can be used where security changes have been made in CCH Central, or where the original security migration was unsuccessful because the employee who signed in to the CCH iFirm Console did not belong to a security group with the Super User setting enabled, or did not have full Client/Assignment access.
To ensure security data can be migrated correctly, a validation is performed when the re-sync is initiated. The validation confirms that the signed-in employee belongs to a security group with the Super User setting enabled and has full Client and Assignment access. If either of these requirements is not met, a validation message is displayed advising the signed-in user does not meet the necessary requirements.
Once the re-sync has been applied, the CCH Central Service must be restarted for the synchronisation process to be completed and the updated security settings to be transferred to CCH iFirm. AML Tab to include Risk Assessment
The AML tab has been enhanced to provide visibility of Risk Assessments completed within CCH iFirm AML. Once a Risk Assessment has been approved in CCH iFirm AML, the assessment details are automatically synchronised to CCH Central, subject to the configured synchronisation interval.
Approved assessments are displayed in the new Risk Assessment section of the AML tab, allowing users to view key information, including the risk level, due diligence status, next review date, employee, and the associated document (if CCH Document is installed).
Where CCH Document Management is installed, the Risk Assessment report is automatically saved to the client's Document Centre using the existing AML Reports document type. Firms subscribing to Risk Assessment as their first AML product should refer to the CCH Document Management Release
Notes for instructions on configuring the required document management integration.
Reporting
The following Risk Assessment fields have been added to CCH Reporting and are available under the AML group within the Contacts area. These fields can be used in reports to provide greater visibility of AML Risk Assessment information synchronised from CCH iFirm AML:
- Date Completed
- Risk Level
- Due Diligence
- Next Review
- Run By
URL Change
In short, the CCH iFirm URL will be updated to ukie.cchifirm.com – users must select “Allow” in the browser prompt to access the system.
Quality Improvements
ITS 68031 - Email/mail merge requires document check-in permission
Previously, when performing an email or mail merge and selecting the Multiple Documents option, users who deselected 'Add to CCH Document Management' still received the message: "You do not have permission to add to CCH Document Management."
Central audit trail for Employees repeating
Previously, when changes were made to an employee record, the Full Access field was incorrectly recorded in the employee audit trail, even when no changes had been made to that setting.
ITS 68548 - Output from a Smart Report shows an Evaluation message in red at the bottom of the report
Since the release of 2026.2 SP, users may have noticed an incorrect evaluation message being displayed at the bottom of Smart Reports when generating or viewing reports. The issue has been resolved, and the evaluation message will no longer be displayed on Smart Reports.
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