For the
file.

A clean audit file is not a tidy file. It is a file that can be defended. A file that can be picked up by another partner — six months from now, in another room — and read without a guide.

It is dated by the day the work was done. It carries the initial of the partner who read it. Margins are open: the client can see the reasoning. Adjustments are explained in plain words. And the opinion is signed by a person.

Those are the five things. They are not new. They are not glamorous. But they are the difference between a file and a defence.

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