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Audit Trail Sprawled Across Spreadsheet

C

cjpaine

Member
Hello,

We are advised that the audit trail can be a worksheet on excel or as a word document.

If one chooses to go down the Excel route, is it okay to have the audit trail spread across the whole workbook. This approach results in audit trail prose juxtaposed to the section of the workbook to which it relates.

I find this quite a convenient way to work as I build and write on the same worksheet at the same time and kill the two modelling \ audit trail "birds" with "one stone". I personally think it reads well that way too. However it does mean that the audit trail looks less like a separate document in its own right as it is entwined with the model.

Is anyone experienced in these matters able to advise why this might not be a sensible idea? and why it may get less marks in the exam

Regards,
Christopher
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I don't think that would work, unless you had a high level summary somewhere.
e.g. audit trail sheet/doc along with more detailed comments in the individual sheets.
If it's intertwined, then how do you know where to start?
 
Have to agree with Tiger on this one. Your aim should be to make it easy for the marker to follow the spreadsheet through from start to finish. Having it all over the place not only makes it harder to do this for them, but it also lays you open to the risk that they'll miss a section or two.

I'd recommend having the audit trail separate in a word doc (just for the exam) - there's a separate thread discussing this - but if it is in Excel, keep it in one place, all together.
 
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