How to prepare for an audit
What UniAsset gives an auditor
The reason the records hold up is that history cannot be edited. Asset timelines, billing events, escalation logs, stock ledger rows, and incident snapshots are written once and never modified or deleted — by anyone, including support.
Correcting a mistake means writing a new record that supersedes it, never editing the old one. An auditor can rely on that in a way they cannot rely on a spreadsheet.
Which report answers which question
| Question | Where |
|---|---|
| What do we own, and what is it worth? | Fixed Asset Register (Orbit+) |
| What has each asset cost us? | Asset Costs (Orbit+) |
| Are our certificates current? | Compliance report |
| Was scheduled maintenance actually done? | Maintenance history |
| Who has had this asset? | Checkout history (Orbit+) |
| What happened to this asset, and who did it? | The asset timeline |
| What did this asset look like when it failed? | The incident snapshot |
All reports export to CSV, Excel, or PDF.
Ahead of the audit
1. Find the gaps first
Use asset intelligence to find assets missing purchase data, missing maintenance history, missing documents, or with no recorded activity.
This is the step most people skip, and it is the most valuable one. UniAsset tells you where the record is thin rather than presenting a confident number built on absent data — so you find out before the auditor does.
2. Clear expired documents
Run the compliance report and renew anything expired. Check Upcoming for anything lapsing during the audit window itself.
3. Close your work orders
A work order left at Completed has written no service record, so its cost is in no report and the PM schedule has not reset. Close them.
4. Reconcile physically
Run a location-based audit on your highest-value sites. Assets recorded but not present are the finding you want to have resolved beforehand, not discovered during.
For Asset Stock, count and record adjustments with reasons.
5. Deal with assets that have left
Dispose of them properly (Odyssey and above) — the disposal records the date, method, proceeds, and the gain or loss against net book value, and archives the asset in the same operation. Disposed assets remain available to the Fixed Asset Register.
Below Odyssey, archive them. Either way the history survives.
6. Take the snapshot
The Fixed Asset Register snapshot export is a point-in-time statement of gross cost, accumulated depreciation, and net book value per asset, and it can include disposed assets. This is the one place a report becomes a fixed artefact — which is exactly what a year-end audit needs.
During the audit
Give the auditor filtered exports rather than access. Filter to the scope in question and export.
Use the asset timeline for challenges. "Who changed this, and when?" is answered directly, with a name and a timestamp.
For incidents, use the snapshot, not the current record. The snapshot shows the asset as it was at the moment of reporting — condition, assignment, maintenance history, document status — locked. That is the evidence.
After
Findings usually point at a habit rather than a record: costs not being logged, work orders not being closed, documents uploaded without expiry dates. Fix the habit and the next audit is shorter.
Common mistakes
Preparing the week before. The gaps take longer to fill than the reports take to run.
Editing records to look tidy. You cannot edit history, and adjustments with no explanation look worse than the discrepancy did.
Quoting figures without checking completeness. Assets missing purchase costs understate portfolio value.
Forgetting disposed assets. They belong in the Fixed Asset Register for a full-year statement.
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