Audit and Certification Process
Our Audit Process
Our audit process consist of six main steps:
- Data submission – Using our online returns system, the media owner submits their data and their ‘claim’ for a specific reporting period.
- Validation – Our returns system automatically analyses the data. Any inaccuracies are investigated and corrected. We then issue the media owner’s ABC certificate.
- Pre-audit review – We assess the media owner’s data and the processes they used to produce it. We’ll then determine which tests we need to use to verify the claim.
- Audit – We apply the selected tests to validate the data.
- Conclusion – We provide a summary of the testing results, record any discrepancies and assess if we need to make an adjustment to the claim or certificate.
- Wrap up – Finally we contact the media owner with a summary of any audit issues and recommendations where necessary.
Our Certification Process
The table below shows how our data gets to market and is changed if our audit shows a publisher’s claim to be inaccurate.
Certificates are generally issued before the publisher claim is audited unless this is the first ABC Certificate or if we have reason to believe the claim could be inaccurate. In these cases we audit the claim before we issue the certificate.
