Consulting Findings Report Template
Five documents and four sheets built so every finding names the standard it is measured against and every recommendation names the person who says yes.
Free download · No account needed
Finding Register · F-02 · governance review, 2,400 home housing association
One row, and the first field is the whole argument
| Field | What the register holds |
|---|---|
| Statement | Repairs are recorded as complete before the tenant confirms the work |
| Criteria | The repairs policy defines completion as the tenant confirming the work is done Repairs policy section 4.2 |
| Condition | 31 of 60 sampled jobs were closed on the operative's return to the depot, with the tenant confirmation field empty |
| Cause | The mobile app marks a job complete when the operative taps done, and the confirmation field is optional |
| Effect | Reported first-time-fix performance is overstated by an unknown margin, and the 14 percent recall rate is the only visible symptom |
| Perspective | Systemic · 31 of 60 · sampled from 2,410 |
| Repeat of | F-04 in the 2024 review |
| Officials' view | Head of repairs agrees the field is optional and states the policy definition was never implemented in the app |
Drop the criteria row and this becomes an opinion. Repairs reporting is inconsistent has nothing in it to agree with, disagree with or act on. A named policy section and a counted sample has one question left in it, and the question is what they intend to do.
Repeat of F-04 is the sentence that changes the room. A new finding invites a discussion about whether it matters. The same finding marked as a repeat of a 2024 one, with the reference, invites a discussion about why nothing happened, and that discussion belongs to the client.
31 of 60 sampled from 2,410. The register never says several, and it never extrapolates a convenience sample to the population.
Search this and you get a table of contents. Title page, executive summary, background, methodology, findings, recommendations, appendices. Every result on page one specifies the order of the sections and not one of them specifies what has to be inside a finding. So the section gets filled with sentences like repairs reporting is inconsistent, which is an observation with a judgement attached, and the client thanks you for a thorough piece of work and decides nothing. The layout was never the problem.
A finding is a structure. 2 CFR 200.516(b) sets out what a federal audit finding has to contain, and it is the most widely applied published specification of one. Five elements: criteria, condition, cause, effect, and whether the case is isolated or systemic with the count stated against the number examined. Criteria is the element consulting drops. The policy defines completion as the tenant confirming the work. Thirty-one of sixty sampled jobs closed at the depot with that field empty.
The decision side follows 2 CFR 200.521, which requires a management decision on each finding stating whether it is sustained, the reasons, and the expected action, carrying the finding's own reference number. So every recommendation traces to a cause and arrives as a question with a yes and a no, a named role and a date. Build it from what an interview programme and a scored assessment produced, or take the files blank.
What's in the pack
Finding Register
Criteria with its source clause, condition, cause, effect, perspective as instances over cases examined, prior-review reference, and the accountable officer's own recorded view.
Finding to Evidence Map
One row per element per finding, four evidence kinds in strength order, and a partly supported element written out rather than left blank.
Recommendation Register
Each row quotes the cause it addresses, carries the owner role and effort, and names the decision it needs from whom by when. Where the decision needs money, the value model that prices it against their own account codes is the sheet finance asks for.
Decision Log
Approved, not approved with the finding sustained, deferred, superseded or awaiting, with the reason and what changes recorded against the finding reference. Where several interdependent recommendations need a dedicated session, the decision workshop pack checks each one's prerequisite and stakeholder alignment first.
What Makes a Finding
The five elements, where criteria legitimately come from, and the rule that demotes a finding with no standard behind it to an observation.
Decision Request Format
Seven lines per decision, including what stays the same on a no and the consequence the decision maker has not thought of.
Findings Report and Executive Summary
Seven sections with observations separated from findings in one line, and a one page summary that carries the decisions rather than the methodology.
Readout Running Order
Ninety minutes ordered for decisions instead of for completeness, with the decisions grouped by person and asked out loud in the room.
How to use it
- 1
Open in River, or take it blank
Open the pack in River and send the evidence with the client's own contract and policies, or download the Word documents and CSV sheets and fill them yourself.
- 2
Find the criteria first
Every finding gets a written requirement behind it, cited to the clause, section or paragraph. Anything with none becomes an observation and the report says which is which.
- 3
Trace each element to evidence
One map row per element. A cause resting on one interested witness is recorded as the origin offered, and the effect never claims more than the evidence carries.
- 4
Ask the decisions in the room
Grouped by the person who answers, cheapest first, with the date written down out loud. Then read the log back and send it the same day.
Frequently asked questions
Is this template free?
Yes. The zip is Word documents and CSV sheets, no account and no card. Edit with AI is the optional half: the agent hunts the criteria inside the client's own contract and policies, then builds the registers from your evidence. The rest sit in the template library.
What format are the downloaded files?
Word (.docx) for the five documents and CSV (.csv) for the four sheets, zipped together. Excel, Numbers and Google Sheets open the finding register, the evidence map, the recommendations and the decision log straight off the download.
Why does a consulting report need audit finding structure?
Because the elements are the same and one profession wrote them down. A federal single audit finding must carry criteria, condition, cause, effect and perspective. Consulting produces the same object, calls it a finding, and routinely ships it without the first element.
What if there is no policy behind something I found?
It becomes an observation, with the criteria field reading none identified and the search you ran recorded. It still goes to the client, in its own section. Inventing the standard from professional judgement is what loses you the room when somebody asks who requires that.
The client disputes one of the findings. Do I soften it?
No. Their view goes into the finding, verbatim where it is short, and the arithmetic stands. A disagreement written into the document is a stated disagreement rather than an ambush in the readout, and the decision request still gets asked. Where the pushback runs across several review rounds, the client feedback and iteration pack logs why each round's request was accepted or declined.
Where do the findings come from?
Whatever the engagement produced: analysis, interview synthesis, system exports, working papers. The criteria come from the client's contract and policies, which is why the intake pack asks for those documents on day one rather than in week three.
How is this different from a maturity assessment?
An assessment grades the organisation against a scale and hands back a profile. This states specific gaps against specific written standards and turns each one into a decision with a name on it. Consultants run both, in that order, and the deliverables are not interchangeable.
Turn evidence into decisions
Take the Word documents and CSV sheets blank, or send River your draft findings with the client's contract and get back the criteria behind each one.
Edit with AI