PBC Request List Template (Audit Prepared-by-Client Tracker)

PBC Request List: [Entity or group name] [Audit or review of the period ended YYYY-MM-DD]

Prepared-by-client (PBC) tracker for an external audit, review or interim visit: engagement header and key dates, owners and contacts, request conventions, the request list by audit area with owner, due date and status, sample selections, open items and escalations, a status dashboard, quality checks before submission and close-out lessons. Structure aligned with common audit practice for evidence requests under the International Standards on Auditing (ISA 500 on audit evidence, ISA 505 on external confirmations, ISA 530 on audit sampling) and PCAOB AS 1105 and AS 2201, cited by number only. Obtain the standard for the normative text. Replace every [bracketed] value and every row marked Example. This is a document format, not audit, accounting or legal advice; your auditor's request list prevails.

Document control

Approvals

Revision history

Contents

1. Engagement header and key dates
2. Roles, owners and contacts
3. Request conventions
4. Request list by area
5. Sample selections
6. Open items, blockers and escalations
7. Status dashboard
8. Quality checks before submission
9. Close-out and lessons learned
10. Glossary and references

1. Engagement header and key dates

A PBC list is the shared plan between the finance team and the auditor for every document, reconciliation, schedule and explanation the auditor needs. It makes the audit predictable: everyone can see what is due, who owns it and what is late. Most audit delays are not caused by findings but by evidence that arrives late, incomplete or in a form the auditor cannot use. A disciplined list prevents that.

Start with the dates. Take the statutory filing deadline and the auditor's report date as fixed points and work backwards: the audit committee meeting needs the clearance memo about a week before, the clearance memo needs fieldwork closed, and fieldwork needs the core schedules on day one and the draft statements within the first two weeks. Agree the dates with the auditor at the planning meeting and record them here.

2. Roles, owners and contacts

Appoint a single coordinator in the finance team who owns this list, triages new requests, and is the only route for submissions unless the auditor and coordinator agree otherwise. The auditor appoints its own coordinator, usually the audit senior. Item owners prepare the evidence; reviewers check it before it goes to the auditor.

3. Request conventions

Agree the conventions below with the auditor at the planning meeting and keep them stable for the whole engagement.

Identifiers. Each request has an ID of the form PBC-AREA-NNN, where AREA is a short code for the audit area (GOV, GC, CASH, REV, INV, PPE, LEA, DEBT, PAY, PUR, TAX, LEG, IT, OTH, ICFR) and NNN is a sequence number. Keep the auditor's own reference in the portal folder column so both sides can search by either.

Statuses. Use one set of statuses and define them so that "done" means the same thing to everyone:

Due dates. A due date is the date the item is uploaded, not the date preparation starts. Items due on the first day of fieldwork are the core schedules; later items follow the auditor's work plan. An item is overdue when its due date has passed and its status is Not started, In progress or Returned.

File naming and format. Name files with the request ID first, then a short description and the version, for example "PBC-REV-001 Revenue by segment v1.xlsx". Provide spreadsheets in native format with formulas intact and totals that agree with the trial balance; provide documents as searchable PDF. One request, one folder.

Data protection. Upload only through the agreed portal. Remove personal data the auditor does not need, for example bank details and home addresses in payroll files, and apply the access restrictions the portal offers. Record any transfer of personal data to the auditor in line with your data protection obligations and the engagement letter.

Changes. New requests during fieldwork are added at the end of the relevant area with a new ID and a due date agreed with the owner. Do not renumber items.

4. Request list by area

The tables below hold the full request list. Each area starts with a short note on what the auditor typically needs and the common delays. Statuses in the example are as at 2027-02-12. Sort each table by due date when working on it, but keep the IDs stable.

4.1 Governance, general and going concern

Governance items let the auditor understand decisions taken during the year and after it. Provide minutes in final form where they exist and signed summaries of decisions for meetings whose minutes are still in draft. The draft financial statements and the consolidation workbook are the spine of the audit: deliver them on the agreed date even if some notes are incomplete, and mark the incomplete notes clearly. Going concern evidence belongs here because it draws on the budget, the treasury forecast and the board's judgement; see Going Concern Assessment (finance/going-concern-assessment).

4.2 Cash and treasury

Cash is usually tested early because bank confirmations take time. Authorise confirmation requests through the banks' platforms before the year end, provide reconciliations for every account including dormant ones, and explain any reconciling item older than one month. Keep the bank account list complete, with signatories, because the auditor also uses it to test controls over payments.

4.3 Revenue and receivables

Revenue is a presumed fraud risk in most audits, so expect detailed requests and samples. Reconcile revenue by stream to the ledger and to the billing system before submitting, and provide the contract liability roll-forward with the same segment split. For each sampled transaction, deliver the contract or order, evidence of delivery or service start, the invoice and the cash receipt as one file per sample item.

4.4 Inventory

Inventory evidence depends on the count, which the auditor attends or observes remotely. Send the count instructions in advance, record the count results and adjustments the same day, and keep the cut-off documents for the last goods received and dispatched. Provide the obsolescence workings with the policy, the ageing and the net realisable value evidence for slow-moving lines.

4.5 Property, plant, equipment and intangibles

Provide the asset register roll-forward reconciled to the ledger, then the support for additions, disposals and impairment. Capitalised development is a judgement area: deliver the project list, the hours or cost basis and the evidence for each capitalisation criterion. The impairment model must use the same plan as the budget and the going concern assessment; see Impairment Test Memo (finance/impairment-test-memo) and Fixed Asset Register (finance/fixed-asset-register).

4.6 Leases

Provide the lease register and the calculation for new and modified leases with the contracts. Explain judgements on lease term and discount rates in a short memo; the auditor will compare them with the business plan. Lease Accounting Memo (finance/lease-accounting-memo) is the format for that memo.

4.7 Debt and equity

Provide the facility agreements and every amendment, waiver and compliance certificate in the year. The auditor tests covenants on the agreement's own definitions and checks the classification of borrowings. Equity requests cover share movements, dividends and share-based payments, each with board approval.

4.8 Payroll and people costs

Payroll is high volume and usually tested through controls plus analytics. Provide country payroll reconciliations to the ledger, starters and leavers lists for sampling, and the approval of bonus schemes and accruals. Personal data in payroll files must be minimised: send only the fields the auditor needs.

4.9 Purchases, payables and accruals

The auditor searches for liabilities that were not recorded, so expect requests for payments made after the year end and for supplier statements. Provide accrual listings with support for items above the agreed threshold, and keep the support for invoices received after the cut-off date ready to send.

4.10 Tax

Tax requests often arrive late because computations depend on final numbers. Agree with the auditor which items can be delivered on draft figures and which only on final figures. Mark items that do not apply as Not applicable with the reason; for example the global minimum tax rules apply only to groups above the revenue threshold. See Income Tax Provision (finance/income-tax-provision).

4.11 Legal, related parties and subsequent events

Legal confirmations take time: provide the list of lawyers and authorise the letters early. Provide the litigation schedule, the related party register and the directors' declarations, and plan the subsequent events review for the days immediately before signing. These items support the representation letter; see Management Representation Letter (finance/management-representation-letter) and Related Party Register (finance/related-party-register).

4.12 IT and internal control

IT general control evidence (access, change management, operations) is usually requested at the interim visit and rolled forward at the year end. Provide service organisation reports with bridge letters covering any gap to the year end, and the complementary user entity controls you operate. Provide the control deficiency log so that the auditor can align its own deficiency evaluation; see Control Deficiency Evaluation (compliance/control-deficiency-evaluation).

4.13 Other information and disclosures

The auditor reads the other information in the annual report for consistency with the financial statements, and reviews the disclosure checklist. Provide drafts as soon as they exist and a final version before publication. Financial Statement Disclosure Checklist (finance/financial-statement-disclosure-checklist) is the format for the checklist.

4.14 ICFR (SOX 404 integrated audit)

An auditor that also gives an opinion on internal control over financial reporting under PCAOB AS 2201 needs management's own evaluation as evidence of what management did and as a starting point for its own work. Provide the risk and control matrix and the scoping early, the test results as they are completed, and the deficiency evaluation before the clearance meeting. The SOX 302 sub-certifications from component and functional leaders support both the Form 20-F certifications and the ICFR representations in Management Representation Letter (finance/management-representation-letter). Keep IDs aligned with Risk and Control Matrix (compliance/risk-control-matrix), Control Testing Workpaper (compliance/control-testing-workpaper) and ICFR Management Assessment (compliance/icfr-management-assessment).

5. Sample selections

Auditors select samples from populations you provide (revenue transactions, additions, payroll changes, payments after the year end). Each sample creates many small evidence requests. Track progress by item, deliver support in one file per item, and tell the auditor early if an item cannot be supported, because a missing item is treated as an exception and can extend the testing.

Check: 25 + 12 + 10 = 47 selected; 18 + 12 + 10 = 40 supported; 47 - 40 = 7 outstanding.

For each sampled item, check before upload that the evidence shows the attribute the auditor is testing: existence (the item is real), occurrence and cut-off (it happened in the period), accuracy (amount and terms agree), and authorisation where controls are tested. Provide the full chain of documents rather than the invoice alone.

6. Open items, blockers and escalations

Review this section at every status call. Record why each item is late and what will unblock it. Escalate to the executive sponsor any item that is more than five working days overdue or that blocks the auditor's work on a significant risk.

Returned items need a short root cause as well as a new date. In the example, PBC-REV-002 was returned because a December pricing change was not reflected in the contract liability schedule; the fix also explains an uncorrected misstatement under discussion. Link returned items to the misstatement or control deficiency they reveal so that the clearance meeting has the full picture.

7. Status dashboard

Summarise the list in one view for the CFO and the audit manager. Counts must add up to the number of items in section 4.

Check: 5 + 6 + 11 + 2 + 23 + 1 = 48. Closed (accepted or not applicable) 24 of 48 = 50.0%; provided or better 35 of 48 = 72.9%; overdue 4 of 48 = 8.3%.

Interpret the dashboard, do not just publish it. In the example, half the list is closed two weeks before the end of fieldwork, which is on track, but the items still open include four of the judgement-heavy areas (going concern, impairment, tax and the ICFR deficiency evaluation). Those are the items that determine whether the clearance meeting on 2027-02-26 can close, so the CFO reviews them individually rather than relying on the percentage.

8. Quality checks before submission

Returned items cost twice: the auditor's time to review and explain, and the owner's time to redo. Apply these checks before setting an item to Provided:

• The schedule agrees to the locked trial balance, and the agreement is shown on the face of the schedule.
• Totals foot and cross-foot; formulas are intact and no values are hard-coded over formulas.
• The period, entity and currency are stated on every page or tab.
• Reconciling items are explained, aged and supported, and none is a balancing figure.
• Supporting documents are complete, legible and named with the request ID.
• Personal data not needed by the auditor has been removed.
• The reviewer has initialled and dated the item, in the file or in the portal.

Keep a short log of returned items and their causes. Patterns, such as reconciliations that never agree to the ledger at the first attempt, point to close process weaknesses that are better fixed in Month-End Close Checklist (finance/month-end-close-checklist) than at the year end.

9. Close-out and lessons learned

When the auditor's report is signed, set the list to Closed, archive the portal content with the statutory records in line with your retention policy, and confirm with the auditor which items it has retained. Hold a short retrospective with the area owners and the auditor within a month while the experience is fresh.

Carry the final list forward as the starting point for next year: delete items that will not recur, add the new ones the auditor has signalled (for example new standards or new entities), and pre-assign owners and due dates before the planning meeting.

10. Glossary and references

References:

• ISA 500 "Audit Evidence"; ISA 505 "External Confirmations"; ISA 530 "Audit Sampling"; ISA 501 on specific items including inventory attendance; ISA 560 "Subsequent Events"; ISA 402 on service organisations.
• PCAOB AS 1105 "Audit Evidence"; PCAOB AS 2201 (audit of internal control over financial reporting integrated with an audit of financial statements).
• The audit engagement letter, which sets management's responsibility to provide information and access; see Audit Engagement Letter (finance/audit-engagement-letter).

Standard and licence note

Structure aligned with common external audit practice for evidence requests and with the evidence, confirmation and sampling topics of ISA 500, ISA 505 and ISA 530 and PCAOB AS 1105 and AS 2201, cited by number and title only. The request list, statuses, areas, dashboard and worked example are original and do not reproduce any standard or any audit firm's request list. ISA and PCAOB materials are copyrighted by their publishers; obtain the official text and check the current version before use. Corvid Commerce Group plc and Ashgrove & Partners LLP are fictional. Template licence: MIT.