Audit PBC lists: what they contain and why the response history has value

What a PBC list is

A PBC list, short for prepared by client, is the request list an audit firm sends before and during fieldwork. It names each schedule, reconciliation and supporting document the company must provide, who on the finance team owns it and when it is due. The company works through the list, uploading evidence and answering follow-up questions until every item is closed.

The list itself is the auditor's request. The company's side of the exchange, its schedules, reconciliations, support and answers, is a company record, and several years of it form a detailed history of how a finance team proves its numbers.

What a typical PBC list asks for

Requests vary by firm, industry and risk, but most lists cover the same areas.

The ownership line: company responses vs auditor workpapers

This boundary decides what could ever be licensed. Only company-created records are candidates; the audit firm's files never are.

If the company exchanged files through the audit firm's portal, access may end with the engagement. Exporting the company's own uploads and tracker history before that happens is good housekeeping whether or not a license is ever considered.

Why PBC response histories are useful to AI developers

A PBC cycle is a structured, multi-step workflow with a clear outcome. Each item has a request, an owner, a deadline, evidence, follow-up questions and a closed status. Across five or ten audits, the history shows how requests changed as the business grew, which items always ran late and how the team resolved exceptions.

That structure is what makes it useful for training and evaluating agents that gather evidence, reconcile accounts and respond to reviewers: the input, the work and the result are all on record. It is strongest when it can be linked to the same years of general ledger, close checklist and email history, and when the company also keeps CRM, support and operations records from that period.

Where PBC histories live

• The company's own PBC tracker, often a spreadsheet on a shared drive, rolled forward each year.
• The audit firm's request portal, if the company uploaded evidence there.
• Close management and reconciliation tools that hold the work behind each request.
• Email and chat with the audit team, including archived mailboxes of former controllers.
• The ERP, for adjusting entries and the transactions behind sampled items.

Diligence requests surface similar material; the list of IT and finance diligence request items that reveal licensable records shows the overlap.

The independence check CAS teams must run first

Client accounting services teams see PBC histories more closely than anyone, and many CAS practices sit inside firms that also audit or review clients. That is where referral compensation rules bite. Under the commissions and referral fees rule (ET 1.520) in the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct, a member in public practice may not accept a commission for recommending a product or service to a client when the member or firm also performs an audit, review, certain compilations or an examination of prospective financial information for that client, and permitted commissions and referral fees must be disclosed to the client. State boards can be stricter than the AICPA Code, and the AICPA's online Code is the authoritative current text.

Before introducing any client, check whether your firm performs attest services for it and what your state board requires. The guide to how CAS teams screen attest clients before a compensated introduction walks through the steps. This is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Confirm with your own counsel, tax adviser or professional body before acting.

How to recognize a company with deep PBC history

• The company has been audited or reviewed for five or more consecutive years.
• It keeps its own PBC tracker rather than relying only on the auditor's portal.
• Prior years' uploads and responses were exported, not left in a closed portal.
• Reconciliations and schedules are filed by year in a consistent folder structure.
• The finance staff who answered the requests still have their email archives.
• The company reached 50+ full-time employees at peak (contractors excluded) and keeps records in many other systems.

PBC history rarely qualifies a company alone; it strengthens a profile that already has broad operational records. The company fit checker gives a preliminary, non-binding read on the whole company.

How a CAS practice makes the introduction

Introduce the company's owner, CEO or CFO and share basic fit information only: approximate size, years of history and the systems in use. Do not send PBC files, reconciliations or samples, and do not describe what they contain. The company works directly with SourceX on its inventory, rights review and redaction rules.

Where your firm's rules allow a compensated introduction for that client, partners earn 25% of the eligible platform fees SourceX actually collects from the referred company's licensing deals, capped at $100,000 per referred company, payable only after the buyer pays and SourceX receives its fee. If your rules bar compensation for a particular client, settle that before registering anything. Records like these are a strong prompt for the shift from compliance work to advisory, and a good example of hidden assets that are not on the balance sheet.

Next step

Pick one non-attest client with a long audit history and check whether its PBC trackers and prior-year uploads still exist. If they do and the company meets the baseline on who qualifies, register as a partner and make the introduction, or have the client apply at sourcex.si/apply.