On-site, remote or desk review: choosing the right exam
Not every client needs an examiner on site every time. Matching the kind of exam to the client's risk lets a small team cover a larger portfolio without missing what matters.
On Business Audits · November 4, 2026 · 5 min read
Most factors have more clients than their examiners can visit as often as they would like. The answer is not to visit less, but to match the kind of exam to the risk each client carries. Three kinds cover most needs: the on-site exam, the remote exam and the desk review. Each has a place, and each misses something the others catch.
The on-site exam
An examiner visits the client’s premises, meets management, walks the operation and works through the records where they are kept.
What it adds:
- Seeing the business. Inventory on the shelves, trucks in the yard, staff at their desks. A business that exists mainly on paper is hard to hide in person.
- Direct access to systems. The examiner can run the A/R aging, credit memo register or customer master file from the accounting system, rather than receiving an export the client prepared.
- Conversations. Owners and bookkeepers say things in person that never appear in an email, and an examiner on site can follow up at once.
It costs the most in time and travel, and it takes the client’s staff away from their work for a day or more.
The remote exam
The same scope as an on-site exam, carried out from the examiner’s desk. The client uploads its records, the examiner works through them, and questions are handled by video call and screen share.
What it does well:
- Detailed testing. Aging analysis, proof of delivery testing, credit memo review and bank statement reconciliation all work as well remotely as on site, sometimes better, because the examiner has the documents in a consistent form.
- Speed and cost. No travel, and easier to schedule.
What it can miss is anything that depends on being there: the physical operation, the unprompted conversation, and the client’s live systems. A client that controls exactly what is uploaded controls what the examiner sees.
The desk review
A lighter check carried out entirely from documents, often between full exams. It typically covers the A/R and A/P agings, a reconciliation of the aging to the general ledger, recent bank statements, interim financial statements and tax filings, and a short list of questions for the client.
It does not test individual invoices in depth or verify balances with customers. It answers a narrower question: has anything changed since the last full exam that needs a closer look?
Matching the exam to the client
A practical rule is to decide each client’s exam from its risk, and to change it when the risk changes.
| Client profile | Suggested approach |
|---|---|
| New client, first year | On-site exam within the first months, then remote |
| Large balance or high concentration | On-site at least annually, remote or desk review between |
| Stable, well-run, modest balance | Remote exam annually, desk review between |
| Rising dilution, past-due balances or tax liabilities | Bring the next full exam forward; on-site if the cause is unclear |
| Misdirected payments or unexplained offsets | On-site exam, with customer verification |
| Change of ownership or key management | On-site exam to meet the new team |
The point of the table is not the exact frequencies, which belong to each factor’s credit policy, but the principle: a client earns a lighter touch by showing stable results, and loses it as soon as the results change.
Keeping the results comparable
Moving a client between kinds of exam only works if the results can be compared. If the on-site exam measures dilution one way and the remote exam another, a change in the figure may just mean a change in method.
Three things help:
- One template per exam type, sharing the same core tests and definitions.
- The same measures every time: aging buckets, dilution, concentration, tax liabilities, misdirected payments.
- Carrying forward open items, so that a desk review checks what the last full exam asked the client to fix.
Using the desk review well
The desk review is the most underused tool of the three. Done quarterly, it catches deterioration months before the next full exam: a past-due bucket growing, credit memos clustering after month end, a gap in payroll tax deposits. When it finds something, the answer is a full exam brought forward, not a longer desk review.
Recording the reason
Whatever kind of exam a client gets, record why. “Remote, because the last two on-site exams were clean and the balance is modest” is a decision a credit committee can review and a regulator can follow. A schedule with no reasons looks like convenience, and when a remote exam misses something an on-site visit would have found, the reason is the first thing anyone will ask for.
The portfolio view
Choosing the right exam for each client adds up to a portfolio that is examined in proportion to its risk. Field examiners spend their days where they are most needed, the clients that warrant a visit get one, and nothing goes unexamined for longer than your policy allows.