Working with data
Working papers
The evidence bundle is the machine-readable record. The working paper is the document that goes in the file: what was checked, what was found, on whose authority, by whom, and everything a second reviewer needs to reproduce the run.
What it contains
| Section | Contents |
|---|---|
| Executive summary | Records analysed, findings by severity, rules executed, and how many rules were verified against an authority. |
| Rule coverage | Every rule that ran: version, assurance, findings, passes, not-applicable and insufficient-data counts. |
| Authorities | For each verified rule, the issuing authority, the document, its publication date and the date VLDTION retrieved it. |
| Findings | One section per finding: severity, status, the records compared, the attributes that differ, and any note you recorded. |
| Review record | Prepared by, reviewed by, the dates, the status and the review note. |
| Dispositions | How many findings sit at each disposition: open, investigating, awaiting client, reviewed, no action required, resolved, suppressed. |
| Review trail | Every disposition and note, with who recorded it and when. Appended as the work was done and never edited. |
| Integrity block | Dataset fingerprint and scheme, run identifier, rule-set version and application version. |
The integrity block
A working paper is only useful if someone else can check it. The fingerprint identifies the normalised data exactly: the same file re-imported under a different name produces the same fingerprint, and a single altered figure produces a different one. The run identifier and rule-set version identify the logic that produced the findings. Together they let a reviewer re-run the same data through the same rules and get the same answer, or establish that something changed.
Reproducibility, printed on the paper
Wave 6 adds a block naming every version the document was produced under: the application, the rule set, a fingerprint of the configuration, the ledger fingerprint, the statement fingerprint, the reconciliation run, and the matching, currency and control methodology versions, with the evidence schema and the fingerprint scheme.
The point is narrow and important. A report generated from an old run must not silently become a different report because a rule was rewritten afterwards. If the versions on two papers differ, they are two documents, and the papers say so themselves.
Reconciliation, control accounts and carry-forward
Where the engagement has them, the paper also carries the bank reconciliation, both fingerprints, the methodology, the match basis, the exceptions, the manual links and the review trail. The control-account reconciliation with both balances, the difference and its composition, and the carry-forward this period started from, listing what was carried and stating that no transaction, finding or run was.
The review record
Prepared by, reviewed by, a status and a note are recorded against the run on the Reports screen and printed on the paper. They are stored on your machine with the run.
Dispositions are recorded on the finding itself and gathered into the paper: open, investigating, awaiting client, reviewed, no action required, resolved and suppressed. Each change appends an entry to the review trail rather than overwriting the one before it, so the file shows what was decided and when, not only what the decision currently is.
Not an electronic signature
Producing one
- Open Reports with the run selected, fill in the review record, and save it.
- Choose Open working paper. The document opens in a new window, formatted for print.
- Print to PDF from the browser's print dialog, and file it alongside the evidence bundle.