audit
Pluralaudits
Pluralaudits
Formsaudits, auditing, audited
- 1An independent review of records and activities that checks whether system controls are adequate, confirms compliance with established policies and procedures, and recommends necessary changes.
The annual audit revealed that several departments had ignored the new approval rules.
Regulators ordered an independent audit of the bank's lending records.
Similarreview, inspection, examination, check
- 2To independently review a system's records and activities to test whether data security and integrity procedures work, confirm compliance with policy, and recommend changes.
Independent consultants audit the bank's data systems to check for security gaps.
Regulators require firms to audit their record-keeping procedures every year.
Similarreview, inspect, examine, assess, check
Note
Where the older bookkeeping verb corrects figures, this one tests a system. Its objects are procedures, controls and records, and the question is whether data security and integrity actually hold. Independence is part of the meaning, since the reviewer stands outside what is examined. A team checking its own work is reviewing, not auditing, in this professional sense.
- 3To examine the figures in an account and make any adjustments needed to set them right.
The bookkeepers audit each ledger and correct any entries that don't balance.
We need someone to audit these accounts before we file them.
Similarcheck, examine, inspect, verify, review
Note
The verb still keeps a foot in the courtroom: an older phrasing speaks of auditing "the accounts of a treasure, or of parties who have a suit depending in court." It is transitive, and its natural objects are accounts and books. It also asks more than check does, because the auditor does not only find errors but sets the figures right.
- 4To attend a course as a listener, without taking it for academic credit.
Many seniors audit university lectures simply for the love of learning.
She decided to audit the seminar instead of taking it for a grade.
Note
The student's sense keeps the Latin listening alive. An auditor in a lecture hall hears everything but is never examined, which neatly reverses the word's other modern uses. It is transitive: one audits a course, a class or a seminar. It stands in contrast to taking a class for credit or for a grade.
- 5The outcome of an audit, or an account after auditors have adjusted it; the final, settled account.
The completed audit became the official record of the company's finances for that year.
Shareholders received the year-end audit, with every adjusted entry clearly marked.
Note
Here audit names the product, not the process: the review itself is what produces it. Shakespeare's Coriolanus (c. 1608–1609) has "Yet I can make my audit up," where to make up an audit is to bring the final account to completion and balance. When you mean the finished, settled reckoning rather than the work of checking, this is the sense in play.
- 6A general examination or close inspection of something.
She carried out a thorough audit of her monthly spending habits.
The team began an audit of the project's progress before the deadline.
Similarreview, inspection, examination, assessment, check
- 7A formal examination carried out by a court of law.
The judge demanded a full audit of the contested will before ruling.
Both parties awaited the court's audit of the financial dispute.
Similarexamination, review, inquiry
Note
The word begins with the ear: Latin audītus, from audiō, "I hear." Examinations were once presented aloud, and the examiner listened, so to hear a case and to examine it were the same act. The judicial sense keeps that original picture, with matters laid before an authority who attends to them. The later bookkeeping senses kept the word but lost the listening.
- 8To give spiritual counseling to someone, as in the practice of Scientology and Dianetics.
Experienced practitioners audit church members in private one-on-one sessions.
She trained for years before she could audit others.
Similarcounsel
Note
The verb behind the Scientology counseling noun. In the passive it describes the member's side of the session: Diane Saks, in Overcoming Celebrity Obsession (2011), writes of a man going back to his church "to be audited." Outside Scientology the same passive usually means having one's finances examined. Context has to make clear which kind of scrutiny is meant.
- 9Spiritual counseling that forms the central practice of Dianetics and Scientology.
He credited years of audit with changing his outlook on life.
The church charges set fees for each session of audit.
Note
A term of Scientology practice, where the activity is usually called auditing rather than audit. Werner Erhard, quoted in William Warren Bartley's 1978 biography, says he "got a lot of benefit from auditing." Martin Ramstedt (2007) writes of "auditing sessions" and notes that the term was taken from business. That borrowing explains why the counselor's word sounds like the accountant's.
Less common meanings
- 10A formal hearing or audience granted to someone who wishes to be heard.
With his Oriſons I meddle not, for hee appeals to a high Audit.
1649, J[ohn] Milton, ΕΙΚΟΝΟΚΛΆΣΤΗΣ [Eikonoklástēs]Note
The sense closest to the Latin "hearing" behind the judicial examination. Milton still uses it in Eikonoklastes (1649), writing of someone's prayers that "hee appeals to a high Audit," meaning a hearing before a higher authority. It is obsolete, and a modern reader would take "an audit with the duke" as a review of his books. Use audience or hearing instead.
- 11Something that serves as a general receptacle, receiving and holding whatever is brought or sent to it.
, "A Funeral Sermon" It [a little brook] paid to its common audit no more than the revenues of a little cloud.
Note
A figure borrowed from the counting house. In "A Funeral Sermon" a little brook pays to its common audit "no more than the revenues of a little cloud." The larger water that gathers every stream is pictured as the place where all sums are rendered, leaning on the "final account" meaning. The sense is obsolete, so present-day English says receptacle or simply names the gathering place.
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Practice
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Origin
Borrowed from Latin audītus, from audiō ("I hear"). The sense of "examine" arose because examinations were originally presented orally, and the examiner listened.