Walkthrough
Tracing a single transaction end-to-end through a process to confirm the process works the way it is documented and the controls sit where they are said to sit.
A walkthrough follows one item from origination to its landing in the records, confirming at each step that the process matches its documentation and that the described controls exist and are performed by the people named. It is the standard way design effectiveness is established, and under AS 2201 it is normally performed annually for significant processes.
Its value comes from being conducted with the actual performer rather than a process owner describing what should happen. The gap between the two is where findings live: the reconciliation that is prepared by the person who also approves it, the exception report that goes to an inbox nobody reads, the manual workaround that has been in place since a system upgrade two years ago.
Walkthroughs are also the part of audit work least improved by automation, and it is worth saying so. An agent can assemble the documentation, pull the transaction, prepare the questions and draft the write-up. The conversation in which somebody admits how the process really runs remains stubbornly human, and it is often the most valuable hour of the engagement.
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