A finding records something your audit found wrong. The client sees it and answers it, and it travels into the opinion.
Who can do this
Members of the DPCO firm working on the audit, under an audit engagement. A DPO engagement cannot raise audit findings. Once the opinion is signed, the file is frozen and no finding can be raised on it.
Raise a finding
Open the audit and press Scope & team. The panel is headed Audit scope & tools. Choose the Raise finding tab. The form is headed Raise a finding.
- Write the Title and What was found.
- Under Finding obligation, write the obligation that was not met.
- Choose the Severity: critical, high, medium or low. It starts at medium.
- If it came out of a test, choose it under Raised from. Otherwise leave it as Not raised from a specific test.
- Optionally, write Who and what this touches and the Number of people affected.
- Optionally, pick from Systems it touches and Activities it touches. These are read from the client's own registers. A picker is absent where the register is outside the engagement or holds nothing.
- Optionally, write a Firm note (never shown to the client).
- Press Raise finding.
What the client sees
The client sees the finding, its severity, the obligation and what was found. They never see the firm note.
The client answers once: they accept the finding or disagree, with a reason. They also plan the fix themselves. You do not write their remediation plan.
Follow the findings
In the audit, open Working papers and choose the Findings tab. Each finding shows its management response. Once the client has put it right, press Close — put right. The client never closes its own finding.
When the client does not answer
A finding with no management response blocks the signature. Give the client the chance to reply.
To see what is waiting across your audits, open Yours on the practice rail and choose Waiting on a client. Each row opens the audit in the client's workspace.
In the audit, open Working papers and choose the Findings tab. Below the findings, Responses owed lists each finding on this audit still waiting, and when it was asked. If the client will not answer, press Record no response received, write Why you are proceeding without a response, and confirm. This goes into the file and the client sees it. The finding stays open at its severity. What is recorded is that the chance to reply was given and not taken.
Severity and the opinion
- While a critical finding is open, the file cannot carry a clean opinion.
- Any finding still owed a response blocks signing.
See the guide to signing the audit opinion for every blocker.
Common questions
"Can the client see our firm note?" No. It is kept for the firm only.
"Can we write the client's fix for them?" No. The fix is the client's. An auditor who writes the remediation plan is no longer independent of it.
"Does recording no response close the finding?" No. It stays open, at its severity.