How long should we reserve staff?
For a full assurance audit, plan daily contact for the first week of fieldwork and shorter clearance calls thereafter. Walkthrough-only engagements need two to three consecutive half-days with operations.
Field guide
How a fintech audit engagement unfolds
A practical map of the stages between your first scoping note and the board briefing — written for finance and compliance leads.
Stages we keep visible
Use this guide to prepare your evidence shelf and staff calendars before work begins.
1. Scoping
We confirm entities, products, period under review, and the audience for the final pack. You leave with a short list of must-have documents and a proposed fieldwork window.
2. Evidence shelf
Chart of accounts, trial balance, bank reconciliations, processor statements, safeguarding break logs, and prior returns are staged in one controlled folder. Incomplete shelves pause the calendar rather than dilute testing.
3. Planning memo
A risk-focused memo names which cycles we will test — settlement, safeguarding, payouts, fee accruals, regulatory ties — and which samples come first.
4. Fieldwork
Practitioners meet finance and operations leads in Taiwan, usually with Taoyuan as the anchor. Walkthroughs and sample testing run in parallel when staff availability allows.
5. Clearance
Draft findings are discussed so factual points settle before the board pack is printed. Mild disagreements on severity are recorded; unsupported disagreements are not.
6. Closing brief
You receive the report, control matrix, and a short oral briefing. Remediation owners and target dates appear beside each finding.
Can work be fully remote?
Document review can be remote; key walkthroughs and bank-mandate verification are scheduled in person when customer funds or payout controls are in scope.
What if our deadline is inside four weeks?
We will say during scoping whether a defensible audit is possible. Compressed calendars often fit a safeguarding review or controls walkthrough better than a full assurance engagement.