The first fieldwork day often evaporates while teams hunt for basic folders. Staging evidence before kickoff protects the checklist calendar.
Always stage these
- Prior-year control matrix and last management letter
- Ledger extracts for the population with clear date stamps
- Access lists for systems the checklist will touch
- Named process owners with phone extensions, not generic department inboxes
Optional but useful
Org charts for approval hierarchies and a map of shared drives where scanned vouchers live. Without the map, auditors waste hours inside nested folders named after fiscal years.
What to leave out
Do not flood day one with every policy PDF written since incorporation. Policies belong behind the specific checklist step that cites them. Extra paper slows the opening meeting and rarely improves sampling.