Fieldwork
Definition
The active evidence-gathering phase of an audit, during which the auditor applies testing procedures to specific controls and collects the evidence that will support findings and conclusions in the audit report.
- Phase
- Active evidence-gathering stage of an audit
- Activity
- Applying testing procedures to specific controls
- Output
- Evidence supporting findings and conclusions
Common questions
How does fieldwork differ from audit planning?+
Planning sets the scope, risk assessment, and testing approach before any evidence is touched, while fieldwork is the execution stage where the auditor actually performs the tests, walkthroughs, and sampling that planning defined.
What happens to evidence gathered during fieldwork afterward?+
It is organised into workpapers that support each finding written into the audit report, so every conclusion in the final report should trace back to specific evidence collected during fieldwork.
Related terms
- Audit Chain of Custody
- The documented record of when audit evidence was collected, by whom, from what source, and how it has been stored and accessed...
- Control Criterion
- The standard against which a control is evaluated. Criteria may come from an external standard (ISO 27001 Annex A, NIST CSF, PCI-DSS),...
- Design Effectiveness
- The assessment of whether a control is designed in a way that would prevent or detect the risk it targets, if it...
- Evidence Sufficiency
- The standard that evidence must meet to support an audit conclusion. Evidence must be relevant to the control being tested, reliable in...
- Operating Effectiveness
- The assessment of whether a control has consistently functioned as designed over the audit period. Requires evidence of actual operation, such as...