Audio lesson · 10 minutes
Being ready for a funding audit
What an audit tests, how sampling turns a few errors into a large adjustment, and the preparation that actually helps.
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Chapters
- What an audit actually tests
- Preparation that helps
- During the audit
Transcript
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Introduction
Being ready for a funding audit. What an audit tests, how sampling turns a few errors into a large adjustment, and the preparation that actually helps.
What an audit actually tests
The test is not whether you know the learner was eligible. It is whether you can demonstrate it, from records that existed at the time. The most important consequence of sampling is extrapolation: where an error found in a sample looks systematic, the conclusion may be applied to the whole population. That is how a handful of errors becomes a large adjustment.
Preparation that actually helps
The single most effective preparation is working the assurance reports properly during the year, because they test the same things an auditor will and they arrive while the data can still be corrected. The second most effective is keeping the per-period evidence set, because it answers most retrospective questions without re-derivation.
During the audit
A known and documented issue is a far better position than one discovered by the auditor. Colleges that record what they know is wrong, and why it could not be corrected, are treated very differently from those that do not. Where a flagged record is correct but unusual, produce the explanation you wrote when you first investigated it. This is why documenting correct exceptions is worth the time.
Read it instead
Being ready for a funding auditThe written module carries the same content at three depths, with the worked examples, the pitfalls and the sources.
Sources
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