Field notes · 2026-01-08
What Evidence Packs Should Contain Before Fieldwork Begins
A practical list of ledgers, policies, and approval trails that speed up recurring compliance reviews and reduce back-and-forth with auditors’ counterparts.
Fieldwork stalls when reviewers arrive to incomplete packs. For recurring compliance reviews, the goal is not to dump every file the entity owns—it is to assemble a repeatable set of artefacts that answer the same questions each cycle.
At minimum, prepare a current entity chart, the finance policy set that still governs approvals, and GL extracts for the review period with clear cut-off dates. Add bank reconciliations, sample payment vouchers with dual-approval trails, and the latest intercompany settlement schedule. If policies were updated mid-period, flag the effective date so walkthroughs do not assume the wrong version.
For multi-entity groups, label every file with the legal entity name used in the corporate registry—not the trading nickname staff use internally. Reviewers waste hours reconciling “Taichung Ops” with the formal company name on bank letters. A one-page naming key in the pack prevents that.
When packs arrive complete, sample selection finishes in days rather than weeks. Incomplete packs do not stop a review, but they stretch the calendar and leave more open questions for management to chase after the draft findings meeting.