Definition
Designing a system so that the questions an audit will ask can be answered later, by recording evidence, authority, and reasoning at the time of each decision rather than reconstructing them afterward. It is decided at build time and cannot be retrofitted onto decisions already made.
It matters because retrospective audits mostly discover that the record does not exist. Prospective auditability is what makes a consequential decision reviewable at all, and it is why a policy record is written before it is needed rather than assembled during an inquiry.
Visibility
Tests that show it is in place
- The audit question set is written before launch and each question maps to a recorded field.
- A sample decision from last quarter can be fully reconstructed from records alone.
- Missing fields block release rather than becoming audit findings a year later.
Evidence to keep
- Artifact: An audit question set mapped to recorded fields, dated before launch.
- Behavior: A past decision reconstructed from records without contacting the owning team.
- Metric: Share of audit questions answerable from records alone, sampled quarterly.
References
- Evidence packs · Reference