Automate Audit Evidence Documentation for Small Accounting Teams
AI assists accounting teams by automatically collecting and linking audit evidence from multiple financial systems. This reduces manual evidence gathering by up to 90% for each audit engagement.
Key Takeaways
- AI automates audit evidence collection by programmatically linking transactions from bank, payment, and ledger systems.
- A custom system generates a complete evidence package for any transaction sample on demand.
- This process eliminates hours of manual screenshotting and report pulling for each audit request.
- An evidence package for 50 transactions can be generated in under 60 seconds.
Syntora builds custom AI systems for small accounting teams to automate audit evidence documentation. One system Syntora built integrated Plaid and Stripe with a PostgreSQL ledger to create a verifiable transaction trail. This approach reduces manual evidence gathering from hours to under 60 seconds per audit sample request.
Syntora built an internal accounting system that synced bank transactions via Plaid and payment data via Stripe, writing journal entries to a PostgreSQL ledger. For audit documentation, this same core logic can be extended to create a verifiable evidence trail for every transaction, from its source to the financial statements.
The Problem
Why Do Small Accounting Teams Manually Collect Audit Evidence?
Many small accounting teams rely on the QuickBooks Online audit log and a document portal like Suralink. The QBO log shows that a journal entry was changed, but it does not provide the source evidence justifying the change. An auditor sees the 'what' but must still ask for the 'why,' forcing your team to manually find the corresponding bank statement line or payment receipt.
Consider this scenario: an auditor provides a list of 50 revenue transactions to test for occurrence. For each one, a staff accountant must log into Stripe to find the original charge, log into the bank portal to find the deposit, and log into the accounting system to find the journal entry. They take screenshots, save PDFs, and upload all 150 files into a shared folder, carefully naming each one. This takes 5-10 minutes per transaction, consuming over 4 hours of skilled labor for a single, routine request.
Document portals like CaseWare or Suralink organize this manual output, but they do not reduce the manual work itself. They are sophisticated file cabinets, not evidence generation systems. The platforms are disconnected from the source of truth in your bank and payment processor APIs. This structural gap is why the process remains manual.
The core problem is that off-the-shelf accounting software treats data from different sources as separate records. A Stripe charge, a Plaid transaction, and a journal entry are three distinct items. A custom system is required to create a persistent, verifiable link between them, establishing a single source of truth for each transaction that satisfies auditor requirements.
Our Approach
How Syntora Builds an Automated Audit Evidence System
The engagement starts with a data source audit. Syntora maps your key financial systems, typically a bank connection through Plaid, a payment processor like Stripe, and your existing general ledger. We identify the specific assertions you need to support (occurrence, cutoff, accuracy) and trace the current manual path your team follows to gather that evidence.
The technical approach would involve building a lightweight data pipeline using AWS Lambda and a Supabase PostgreSQL database. When a transaction occurs in a source system like Stripe, a webhook triggers a Lambda function. This function pulls the transaction data, finds the corresponding bank deposit using the Plaid API, and creates a unified record in Supabase that links the two. A simple FastAPI service provides an API to retrieve all linked evidence for any given transaction ID.
Syntora built a similar system for its own accounting operations using Express.js and PostgreSQL on DigitalOcean. The delivered system for you would be a secure web dashboard your team uses. To respond to an audit request, a staff member pastes in the list of sampled transaction IDs. The dashboard calls the FastAPI service and assembles a downloadable archive with all linked source documents in under 60 seconds. This fits directly into your current workflow without requiring a change in your general ledger.
| Manual Evidence Gathering | Automated Evidence System |
|---|---|
| Time per Sample (50 transactions) | 4-8 hours of manual lookups and screenshots |
| Evidence Completeness | Risk of missing documents or incorrect links |
| Staff Time Allocation | Senior staff time spent on low-value data entry |
Why It Matters
Key Benefits
One Engineer From Call to Code
The person on the discovery call is the engineer who builds your system. No project managers, no handoffs, no communication gaps.
You Own All the Code
You receive the full source code in your own GitHub repository, along with a runbook for maintenance. There is no vendor lock-in.
A 4-6 Week Build Timeline
A typical system integrating up to three financial data sources is designed, built, and deployed in 4 to 6 weeks from kickoff.
Flat-Rate Ongoing Support
After launch, an optional monthly support plan covers monitoring, bug fixes, and adjustments for API changes from your data sources.
Deep Accounting Process Knowledge
Syntora has built automated double-entry ledgers and understands the specific evidence an auditor needs to see to verify a transaction.
How We Deliver
The Process
Discovery Call
A 30-minute call to map your current audit evidence workflow, data sources, and primary pain points. You receive a written scope document within 48 hours.
Architecture and Scoping
You provide read-only API access to your financial systems. Syntora presents a technical design and a fixed-price proposal for your approval before any build work begins.
Build and Weekly Iteration
You get weekly check-ins with progress demos. You can test the evidence retrieval dashboard with real transaction data from past audits before full deployment.
Handoff and Support
You receive the complete source code, deployment scripts, and a maintenance runbook. Syntora monitors the system for 30 days post-launch, with optional support thereafter.
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The Syntora Advantage
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Assessment phase is often skipped or abbreviated
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You own everything we build. The systems, the data, all of it. No lock-in
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