Description

A focused course, tailored for you

The AWM Audit Associate Evidence Playbook

Twelve modules that take a junior asset and wealth management auditor from raw fund data to a workpaper a senior signs off without rework.

Your senior wants the level 3 fair value workpaper tonight, the custodian confirmation came back with the wrong cut-off, and the NAV recalc is off by more than tolerance. The textbook covered audit theory. It did not cover how to actually close an asset and wealth management engagement file.

$199 one-time

Tailored to your situation. Access within 24 hours. 30-day money-back.

Includes a hand-built implementation playbook delivered alongside course access, generated for your specific situation.

Why this course

Asset and wealth management audit is its own discipline inside financial services audit. A first or second year associate on an AWM portfolio is expected to test fund accounting prepared by a third-party administrator, reconcile to custodian holdings, evaluate the fair value hierarchy, document level 3 valuation challenges, test management and performance fee calculations, walk through expense allocations against the offering memorandum and side letters, evaluate the administrator's SOC 1 report and bridge the gaps, and produce workpapers a senior, manager, and partner will all review. The hard part is not the theory. The hard part is that the administrator pack, the custodian feed, the prime broker statements, the GP capital account schedules, and the LP side letters all live in different shapes, and nothing on the engagement teaches the junior how to bring them together into one defensible file. The result is rework, late nights at quarter and year end, and a review note backlog that bleeds into the next engagement.

What you walk away with

Close an AWM engagement file with workpapers that pass senior review the first time.
Reconcile administrator NAV packs, custodian confirmations, and prime broker statements into one tie-out.
Document fair value level 1 / level 2 / level 3 testing in a form a manager and partner will sign.
Test management fees, performance fee crystallisation, and expense allocations against the offering memorandum and side letters.
Evaluate the administrator SOC 1 report and document the user-entity controls bridge.
Write tickmarks, walk-throughs, and conclusions a senior reads once.

The 12 modules

Module 1. The AWM engagement file from day one

A complete map of what an asset and wealth management audit file contains: planning memo, scoping, risk assessment, fund structure diagram, administrator and custodian inventory, materiality benchmarks for funds versus management companies, and the workpaper index a senior expects to see. Walks the associate through how partner and manager risk decisions flow into the testing scope a junior actually executes.

Module 2. Reading a fund structure: feeders, masters, parallel vehicles, SPVs

How to read a private fund structure chart so the audit work makes sense. Covers master-feeder structures, parallel onshore and offshore vehicles, alternative investment vehicles, blocker SPVs, and how each vehicle's audit scope, materiality, and consolidation treatment differ. Includes worked examples of common structures across hedge funds, private equity funds, real estate funds, and registered fund complexes.

Module 3. The administrator NAV pack and trial balance tie-out

How to obtain, read, and tie out the monthly and quarterly NAV pack from the third-party administrator. Covers the standard pack structure, NAV per share or per unit calculations, capital activity, GP and LP capital account schedules, and how to tie the administrator's general ledger to the trial balance being audited. Includes templates for the tie-out workpaper and the differences log.

Module 4. Custodian confirmations that actually clear

How to request, track, and reconcile custodian confirmations for held positions and cash. Covers cut-off date alignment, partial responses, prime broker confirmations for hedge funds, sub-custodian chains for global portfolios, and the most common reasons confirmations come back with mismatches. Includes a confirmation tracker template and a difference resolution log a senior will accept.

Module 5. Fair value hierarchy and level 3 testing

The single largest source of review notes on AWM engagements. Walks through level 1 quoted-price testing for liquid securities, level 2 corroborated input testing for less-liquid instruments, and the full level 3 protocol for illiquid private holdings: pricing source evaluation, model review, key input testing, back-testing of prior valuations, and the unobservable inputs disclosure tie-out. Includes a level 3 testing template the manager will sign.

Module 6. Existence and ownership for private holdings

How to audit existence and ownership for unlisted private investments where there is no custodian. Covers subscription document review, capital call confirmations to the underlying fund or company, GP-side records, third-party administrator records on the underlying, and the alternative procedures used when direct confirmation is not available. Includes worked examples for private equity and venture capital fund-of-funds and direct holdings.

Module 7. Management fees, performance fees, and crystallisation testing

How to recompute and test management fee calculations against the offering memorandum, including step-ups, fee holidays, and fee offsets. Covers performance fee and carried interest crystallisation, hurdle and high-water-mark mechanics, clawback provisions, and side-pocket accounting. Includes a recomputation template that handles the most common fee structures and a tie-out to the management company revenue side of the engagement.

Module 8. Expense allocations and side letters

How to test fund expenses against the offering memorandum, the limited partnership agreement, and the side letters with specific LPs. Covers expense categorisation, organisational expense caps, broken-deal expenses, fee offsets to underlying managers, ESG cost allocations, and the audit response to LP-specific economics granted in side letters. Includes a side-letter abstract template and an expense allocation reasonableness workpaper.

Module 9. Administrator SOC 1 and user-entity controls

How to evaluate the third-party administrator's SOC 1 type 2 report and bridge it into the audit. Covers control objective coverage, exception evaluation, complementary user-entity controls the audit team is relying on, gap procedures where the SOC 1 does not cover the full audit period or scope, and how to document the conclusion in a form a partner will sign. Includes a SOC 1 evaluation workpaper and a bridge memo template.

Module 10. Investor capital activity and partner allocations

How to test capital calls, distributions, transfers, redemptions, and the allocation of profit and loss across partners or shareholders for the period under audit. Covers waterfall calculations for private equity, equalisation for hedge funds with mid-period subscriptions, in-kind contributions and distributions, and rebalancing across parallel vehicles. Includes a partner allocation recomputation template and tie-out to the capital account schedules.

Module 11. Disclosures, regulatory ratios, and the financial statement file

How to walk the financial statements from the trial balance to the issued document: fair value hierarchy disclosures, financial highlights for registered funds, schedules of investments, related-party disclosures, subsequent events, and the regulatory ratios fund types are required to disclose. Covers how to tie every disclosure number to a workpaper and how to evidence the comparative period rolled forward correctly.

Module 12. Wrap, review notes, and partner sign-off

How to close the file: how to write conclusions that answer the planning risk, how to clear review notes from senior, manager, and partner without churn, how to assemble the summary review memo, the engagement quality review file, and the management letter points. Covers the post-issuance file lock and the most common archive deficiencies that bite firms in internal inspection.

How this addresses your situation

Specific modules that map to what you said you are dealing with.

Use modules 1 to 3 in the planning and walkthrough phase of a new AWM engagement.

Use modules 4, 5, 6, and 10 in the substantive testing phase on existence, valuation, and capital activity.

Use modules 7, 8, and 9 in the controls reliance and economic testing phase.

Use modules 11 and 12 in the wrap and disclosure phase before partner sign-off.

What you get with this course

12 written modules in the Art of Service learning environment.
Workpaper templates for tie-out, confirmations, fair value level 3 testing, fee recomputation, expense allocation, SOC 1 evaluation, and partner allocation.
Worked examples of master-feeder, parallel vehicle, and SPV audit scoping.
A side-letter abstract template and an expense allocation reasonableness workpaper.
A SOC 1 evaluation workpaper and a bridge memo template.
A hand-built implementation playbook tuned to the buyer's client mix, delivered alongside course access.
30-day money-back guarantee.

What you will have in hand by Day 1, Week 1, Month 1

Hour 0: course access provisioned in the Art of Service learning environment.

Hour 0 to 24: hand-built implementation playbook tuned to the buyer's AWM client mix delivered alongside course access.

Week 1: modules 1 to 3 plus the file-structure templates.

Week 2: modules 4 to 7 with substantive testing templates.

Week 3: modules 8 to 10 with controls reliance and capital activity templates.

Week 4: modules 11 and 12 plus the wrap, review notes, and disclosure templates.

Before and after

Before

You are pulling all-nighters at quarter end stitching together the administrator NAV pack, the custodian confirmation file, the prime broker statement, and the side letters into something the senior will accept. Review notes come back in three rounds. The level 3 valuation workpaper gets rewritten twice. The expense allocation tab gets sent back because the side-letter overrides were missed.

After

You walk into a new AWM engagement with a known file structure, known workpaper templates, and a known order of operations. The administrator tie-out is done in a session. The custodian confirmations clear because the cut-off date is right the first time. The level 3 workpaper passes manager review in one round. The senior reads your tickmarks once.

What happens if you do not address this

Junior associates who stay stuck in rework cycles on AWM portfolios do not get promoted on time. Engagement realisation drops because hours bleed into review notes. The associate who closes a file cleanly the first time is the associate the manager asks for on next year's engagement and the senior associate next year.

Who it is for

Audit associates on asset and wealth management portfolios at large audit firms. The course is built for the junior who is auditing private fund vehicles, registered funds, separately managed accounts, or wealth platforms, who is closing workpapers on third-party-administered structures, and who wants a clean file the first time through.

Who this is NOT for. Not for partners or senior managers running engagement risk and independence at the firm level. Not for fund operations or middle office staff at the asset manager. Not for tax associates on the same engagement. Not for advisory or deals staff who do not own audit evidence.

How it arrives

Text-based course in the Art of Service learning environment, plus downloadable workpaper templates and worked examples for every module, plus the hand-built implementation playbook delivered alongside course access.

Time investment. Roughly six to eight hours total reading across the twelve modules. Templates and worked examples are used inside live engagement work rather than studied separately, so the time investment is the reading plus the time saved on the first engagement that uses the templates.

Why $199 is the right number

Firm-internal training covers audit theory and the firm methodology at a level that is uniform across audit lines of service. Generic CPE on fund accounting covers the accounting, not the audit evidence file. Asset management trade body materials cover the operator perspective, not the auditor's evidence position. This course is built specifically for the audit associate's job on an asset and wealth management engagement: the file, the tie-outs, the templates, the review-note prevention.

FAQ

I am a first year associate. Is this too senior for me?

No. The course is written for first and second year associates on AWM portfolios. The templates are the ones a senior is going to expect from you, written in plain language with worked examples.

I audit registered funds, not private funds. Does this still apply?

Yes. Modules 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, and 12 apply directly to registered funds. Modules 6, 8, and 10 are heavier on private fund mechanics but the underlying audit logic and templates transfer.

What is the hand-built implementation playbook?

After purchase, the playbook is built around your specific client mix and engagement structure: which fund types you cover, which administrators are involved, which custodians, and the workpaper templates pre-tuned to your engagement. It arrives alongside course access in the learning environment.

Does the course cover the management company audit too?

The course focuses on the fund-side audit. Module 7 covers the management fee tie-out that links to the management company revenue side, but the management company audit itself is not the focus.

What if it does not help on my next engagement?

30-day money-back guarantee, no questions asked. The course either pays for itself in review-note time saved on your next engagement, or you get a refund.

30-day money-back guarantee. If after a week of working through the materials this is not what you needed, reply to the receipt email and a full refund is processed. No questions, no forms.

Within 24 hours your account in the learning environment is provisioned and the tailored implementation playbook is delivered alongside it.