A. Normally spreadsheets and documents to be included in an audit file are uploaded as attachments.
When they are to amended they are then downloaded, changed then uploaded again using replace to overwrite the original. This ensures that the copy loaded into the audit file is secure and up to date.
Some firms, however, prefer to keep their documents and spreadsheets in Sharepoint or Google Drive to work on them collaboratively, and then these documents and spreadsheets will only need to be uploaded once complete to form part of the audit file.
In these cases it makes sense to add a link within the AA file to provide easy access to the files until they are ready to be uploaded into the final audit file.
These links may be added also using the attachments function.
For example, say we are tracking our time/cost using a Google Drive spreadsheet and want to add a project tracking spreadsheet link into Audit Assistant onto the Strategy page:
From the attachments dialog there are three options in the drop-down box, file. link and hard-copy.
Paste the link into the link box, then edit the display name to show a more meaningful name for the link.
Then add:
The index will display as follows:
Clicking the link will open it in a new window in the browser.
Remember that if the file is to form part of the final audit file (i.e.contains audit evidence) then at the end of the job the link should be replaced with the actual copy (PDF say) of the document.