A audit controls is a list of things to check and a number of days to check them in, and the second is decided by the first long before anyone opens the list. For a business holding its systems to a control framework, the checks run over the controls, the tests, the vulnerabilities, the incidents and the access reviews; every item is a sample to take, minutes to spend and a chance of a gap that costs hours to close. The compliance officer who works those figures before the audit is scoped budgets the audit and its aftermath together; the one who does not learns the aftermath's cost from the invoice. This page walks what a audit controls covers, how to size its days, its expected gaps and its all-in cost, and where the free sheets on this site do that sizing from the program's own numbers, with no account.
Why the search is audit controls
The words in audit controls are the words a business holding its systems to a control framework uses when the obligation has a name and the program does not yet have a number. The name is the regulator's, linked below; the number is the program's own, and it is the count of obligations, controls and evidence items behind IT compliance turned into reviewer hours on the obligations register sheet and into audit days on the audit scope sheet. A program that searches audit controls and comes away with those two figures has done the first day of the work, and the paid plan on this site keeps what follows: the record, with owners, dates and the attestation that closes each period.
What a audit controls covers
For a business holding its systems to a control framework: the controls, the tests, the vulnerabilities, the incidents and the access reviews. Each is a control with evidence behind it, and a checklist is the list of controls with a sample size and a minutes-per-sample figure attached whether or not anyone wrote them down. The audit scope sheet on this site takes systems, controls, samples and minutes and returns the samples, the hours, the days and the coverage the days available give, so the checklist has a size before it has a date.
Access management controls, and the access control audit that tests them
Four controls carry most of the weight: how access is requested and approved, how it is removed when somebody leaves or moves, whether privileged access is separated and monitored, and whether somebody periodically reviews who has what. An audit of them does not read the policy first; it takes the current user list, compares it with the current staff list, and asks about the differences. That test is cheap enough to run yourself monthly, and running it yourself is what stops the audit version being a surprise. The evidence to keep is the list, the date, who reviewed it and what was changed as a result.
Gaps, remediation and the all-in cost
An audit finds gaps at a rate the last audit already measured, and every gap costs remediation hours. The audit sheets on this site for HIPAA, GDPR and PCI, and the IT control-testing sheet for a framework, take the item count, the gap rate, the hours per gap and the hourly cost and return the gaps expected, the remediation hours and the cost with the aftermath in it. For IT compliance the sheet to start with is the IT control-testing sheet. None of them publishes a benchmark rate; each works the program's own.
What to do with the number
Take it to the budget conversation and to the consultant's proposal. A proposal whose audit days land far from the sheet's is sampling more or less than the program needs, and a budget that covers the assessment and not the remediation is half a budget. The guide this page supports covers the questions for a regulatory compliance consultant. Attestvio Pro keeps every audit with its findings and their remediation against the obligations it tested; the sheets stay free.
Gaap internal controls, and where the accounting rule stops
The accounting framework governs how a transaction is recognized, measured and presented; it does not prescribe the controls that make the resulting numbers reliable. Those come from management's own design, and where a filing regime applies, from the assertion management has to make about them. So a question about internal controls under the accounting rules is really two questions: does the treatment follow the framework, and is there a control with evidence behind each material assertion. Keeping them apart stops a control register from turning into a restatement of the accounting policy.
Tests of controls, and what a sample proves
A test of controls asks whether the control operated, and it answers about the population only through the sample it took. So the two things to agree before fieldwork are the population and the sample size, because a control that runs daily and one that runs quarterly need very different evidence for the same conclusion. A sample of one on a daily control proves almost nothing and takes the same afternoon as a sample of twenty. The audit scope sheet on this site works the days a stated sample costs, which is the figure to bring to that conversation.
Questions people ask about audit controls
How long does a audit controls take?
Items times minutes over 60 for the hours, over the hours in an audit day for the days: the audit scope sheet on this site works it from your own systems, controls, samples and minutes with no account, and publishes no benchmark.
What does a audit controls cost all in?
Assessment hours plus the expected gaps times the remediation hours per gap, times the hourly cost. The audit sheets on this site work it from your own gap rate; the worked examples run from $8,800 to $19,720 for the sizes entered.
Does Attestvio run the audit controls?
No. Attestvio sizes it and keeps the findings and their remediation against the obligations; the audit itself is your assessor's or your own team's. The sheets are free either way.