Audit engagements, findings and opinions in one traceable flow.
An audit firm's risk is not in the opinion — it is in everything that had to happen before the opinion was signed. Independence declarations that arrive late, rotation records kept in spreadsheets, review notes scattered across email threads, findings without documented management responses: each gap is a quality and regulatory exposure. Tenderely BPM connects the engagement from contract to signed opinion in one structured record, so the evidence of a sound process is always there when it needs to be.
What does an audit practice repeat on every engagement?
01
Engagement acceptance
Before fieldwork starts, the client, scope, fee, team and independence of every member have to be confirmed and signed off. When this lives in email, it is easy to start work before all checks are complete.
02
Independence declarations and rotation
Every team member declares independence at the start of the engagement, and partner rotation cycles have to be tracked across years. A declaration that is late or missing is a compliance failure, not a paperwork inconvenience.
03
Audit planning and risk assessment
Materiality, risk areas, scope decisions and the allocation of hours to each section have to be documented before fieldwork opens. Decisions taken verbally in a kick-off meeting leave no audit trail.
04
Fieldwork and working-paper management
Evidence is gathered, procedures are performed and working papers are prepared and cross-referenced. The file has to be complete and organised before quality review begins, not assembled afterwards.
05
Findings and management responses
Each finding is communicated to the client, a response is requested and the outcome is documented. When findings are tracked in email, the response sometimes arrives but the loop is never formally closed.
06
Quality review, opinion and sign-off
The engagement partner reviews the file, the quality reviewer checks the engagement, and the opinion is authorised. Each of these is a gate: the next step must not open until the previous one is complete.
Where does this break down today?
Independence gaps surface at the wrong moment
A missing declaration or an overdue rotation is discovered during a regulatory inspection or a peer review — not at the start of the engagement when it could have been prevented.
The file is assembled at the end
Working papers, review notes and sign-offs collected throughout the engagement live in personal folders and email chains. Preparing the final file means hunting for documents that should have been in one place from the start.
Review stages are not enforced
Quality review is a step that is supposed to happen before the opinion is issued, but when the workflow is informal, a busy engagement can reach sign-off with review comments still open.
Time and fees are recorded separately
Hours are logged in one system, the engagement budget is in a spreadsheet and the fee schedule is in the contract. By the time anyone compares them, the engagement is already over-run.
What changes with Tenderely BPM
01
Engagement opens only when checks are complete
Independence declarations, conflict checks and partner sign-off are steps in the flow. The fieldwork stage does not open until every required confirmation is on the record.
02
Rotation history is a structured record
Each partner's engagements are recorded in one place, so the number of consecutive years on a client is always visible — not calculated from memory at renewal time.
03
Review stages are gates, not reminders
Conditional steps mean the opinion cannot be progressed until quality review is recorded as complete. The enforcement is in the process, not in a person's discipline.
04
Findings have a documented life cycle
A finding is raised, assigned a severity, sent for management response and closed when the response is accepted. Every step and its timing stays on the record.
05
Deadlines chase themselves
Give any step an SLA — independence declaration due date, review deadline, report issuance — and Tenderely sends a reminder when it approaches and an escalation when it passes.
06
Time and fee sit on the same engagement
Hours logged against each engagement phase and the agreed fee schedule live on the same record, so recoverable versus written-off time is visible during the engagement, not only at billing.
FAQ
Can we enforce different review rules for different engagement types?
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Yes. Approval chains, conditional branching and parallel steps are configured without code. A statutory audit engagement can require a separate quality reviewer while a smaller agreed-upon procedures engagement follows a shorter chain — each rule lives inside the flow and cannot be bypassed without the exception being recorded.
Can we give clients access to submit responses to findings?
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Yes. A public form can be sent to a client contact as a link so their management response lands directly on the finding record. The client does not need an account in your system.
How is access to sensitive engagement files controlled?
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Unit-, role- and field-level permissions decide who sees what. An engagement can be restricted so only the assigned team and the reviewing partner can open it. Fields such as fee amounts or reviewer comments can be hidden from team members who do not need them.
Can staff log their CPD hours in the same system?
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Yes. CPD hours are structured records like any other. Each entry captures the date, activity, provider and hours, and a dashboard makes the running total per person visible at any time — no end-of-year spreadsheet reconciliation needed.
Is there a ready setup or do we have to build everything from scratch?
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The Independent Audit Firm package installs with forms, workflows and a dashboard already in place. A working engagement flow opens within minutes, and you then adjust each step, field and permission to match how your practice operates.