India Audit Lens
Build and default an entity-understanding profile
Create the planning questionnaire used to document the auditor's understanding of an entity and its environment. The profile supplies the questionnaire structure; the engagement team must still enter and support…
By India Audit Lens product team · Updated 2026-07-17
Create the working profile
Navigate to Settings → Customization → Entity Understanding. Confirm the page title Entity understanding profiles. Click Create New Profile for a blank profile, or click Clone beside the closest SYSTEM or FIRM profile. When cloning, edit the proposed copy name and click Clone. Enter a unique Profile Name and optional profile description. Click Save.
SYSTEM profiles open read-only. A cloned profile is a FIRM profile and can be changed without altering the source.
Add and order sections
Click Add Section. Select the new section and edit its Key and Section label. Save the section. Use the up/down controls to place it in the intended planning sequence. Repeat for ownership/governance, operations, environment, financial reporting, controls, IT, laws/regulations, related parties, estimates, going concern, or the firm's other approved areas. Select a section to display its questions.
If a section includes the available accounting-policy linkage control, enable it only when that section should feed the engagement's accounting-policy planning workflow.
Add questions
In the selected section, click Add Question. Enter a specific question that can be answered from enquiry, observation, inspection, or other planned procedures. Choose the supported response type and configure its options where applicable. Add Guidance describing the expected depth and evidence. Enter Source Reference, for example the relevant SA 315 paragraph or firm methodology reference. Configure required, applicability, risk, or other visible controls. Click Save Question.
Avoid embedding real client facts in the reusable profile. Examples should be synthetic and clearly labelled so they cannot be mistaken for engagement evidence.
Validate the profile in planning
Open a synthetic engagement representative of the intended entity type. Go to Planning → Entity Understanding. Initialise or select the new profile where the workflow permits. Confirm all sections and questions appear in order. Test narrative, selection, date/number, required, N/A, guidance, source-reference, and save/reload behaviour as applicable. Verify any linked accounting-policy or risk-assessment hand-off. Obtain methodology-owner approval.
Set the default
Return to Entity understanding profiles. Click Set as Default beside the approved profile. Verify its default star. Initialise a new synthetic engagement and confirm it receives the intended starting profile.
A default change applies to future initialisation. It does not rewrite planning answers already created in an engagement.
Revise and delete safely
Clone for material revisions when the firm must distinguish methodology generations. The displayed model version is not a substitute for a formal publish/effective-date workflow. Delete only a FIRM profile after moving the default and confirming no future work should select it. Deleting a section removes its questions from the reusable profile; it must not be used to erase engagement evidence.
Expected result
The approved profile contains a complete, ordered questionnaire with guidance and sources, has been tested on a synthetic engagement, and is selected by default only when intended.