What does PBC stand for in an audit?

PBC stands for "prepared by client." Some firms say "provided by client." It covers the documents, schedules and reports the client prepares for the audit team, such as the trial balance, bank reconciliations and the fixed asset roll-forward.

What are PBC schedules?

PBC schedules are analyses the client prepares to support a balance: a fixed asset roll-forward, a debt schedule, an accrued expenses schedule, an aged receivables listing. Each one should agree to the trial balance, and the auditor checks that it does.

Who prepares the PBC list, the auditor or the client?

The auditor or accountant writes the list. The client prepares the items on it. The list itself is the request; the items are what the client produces.

When should a PBC list be sent?

During planning, early enough that the items arrive before fieldwork starts. Agree on the due dates with the client contact who will gather the documents, and send a short first list if the engagement is large.

Is there a free PBC list template?

Yes. The sample table in this article is free to copy, and the free PBC list generator at dokutrak.com/tools/pbc-list-generator lets you edit a starter list, set periods and statuses, export it to CSV and copy a request for the missing items. The tool needs no account.

What Is a PBC List? Meaning, Sample and Template

A PBC list ("prepared by client" list) is the itemized list of documents, schedules and reports an auditor or accountant asks a client to prepare for an engagement. Each line names one item, the period it covers, when it is due and whether it has arrived. Audit teams use it most, but reviews, year-end closes and tax returns run on the same list.

Writing the list is the easy part. The work hides in the stretch between the day you send it and the day the last item lands, and that is the part most guides skip.

If you need a list today, the free PBC list generator gives you an editable starting point: copy the rows you need from the sample below, set the periods and export to CSV.

Key Takeaways

PBC means "prepared by client." A PBC list is the request list of everything the client produces for the engagement team.

A good line has five parts: the named document, the exact period, the format, the due date and the status.

The list changes with the engagement. An audit asks for support behind balances; a review or compilation mostly asks for the books and the reconciliations.

Received is not reviewed. An item marked received still needs a professional to open it and accept it.

What does PBC mean in accounting?

PBC means "prepared by client." A PBC item is any document, schedule or report the client produces for the accountant or audit team: the trial balance, bank reconciliations, an aged receivables listing, a debt schedule. Some firms say "provided by client." The meaning is the same.

The useful line to draw is between what the client prepares and what the auditor gets directly. Bank confirmations are the clearest example. Under the PCAOB's audit evidence standard, a confirmation response is a direct written communication to the auditor from the confirming party, such as the bank.¹ So the client's job on a PBC list is the list of accounts and bank contacts, plus any authorization the bank asks for. The confirmation itself never passes through the client's hands.

One more note, because the acronym has other meanings: "PBC" also stands for a public benefit corporation, and for a boxing league. In accounting and audit, it means prepared by client.

What is a PBC list in an audit?

In an audit, the PBC list is the request list the audit team sends during planning, so fieldwork can start with the evidence already in hand. It is the audit PBC list most people picture: long, grouped by audit area, starting with the trial balance.

Auditors care about how each PBC item was produced, not only whether it showed up. The PCAOB's AS 1105, Audit Evidence, says that when an auditor uses information produced by the company as audit evidence, the auditor has to test its accuracy and completeness (or test the controls over it) and judge whether it is precise and detailed enough for the purpose.¹ The same standard ranks original documents as more reliable than photocopies or documents converted to electronic form.¹

That has a practical consequence for the way you write the list:

Ask for system reports with the run date and parameters showing, not a spreadsheet the client retyped from the screen.
Ask for statements as the bank or lender issued them, not a summary.
When a schedule has to be built by hand, ask for the report it was built from too.

A retyped aging looks like a system aging until you try to test it. Asking for the right format up front saves a second request.

A scope note: AS 1105 is a PCAOB standard, so it governs audits of public companies and SEC-registered broker-dealers. Private-company audits follow the AICPA's auditing standards, which have their own evidence section. I cite the PCAOB text here because it is the one I could read in full.

What goes on a PBC list: a sample by audit area

A PBC list is grouped by audit area, starts with the trial balance, and every schedule on it should agree to that trial balance. Here is a sample PBC list for a small company's year-end financial statement work. Period assumes a calendar year; change it to your client's fiscal year.

Area	Item	Period	Why it is asked
General	Year-end trial balance	Fiscal year end	Every other schedule ties back to it
General	General ledger detail	Full year	Lets the team trace any balance to its entries
General	Prior-year adjustments, as posted	Opening balances	Confirms last year's corrections made it into the books
General	Board or owner meeting minutes	Full year and after year end	Big decisions show up here before they show up in the ledger
Cash	Bank statements for every account	Year-end month and the month after	The month after shows which outstanding checks cleared
Cash	Bank reconciliations	Year end	Agrees the bank to the books
Cash	List of accounts with bank contacts	As of year end	So the auditor can send confirmations directly
Receivables and revenue	Aged receivables, agreed to the ledger	Year end	Shows what is old and might not be collected
Receivables and revenue	Allowance for doubtful accounts calculation	Year end	Supports the estimate behind the net balance
Receivables and revenue	Cash received after year end	First weeks of the new year	Evidence the receivables were real
Receivables and revenue	Deferred revenue schedule	Year end	Shows cash collected for work not yet done
Inventory	Count date, locations and count instructions	Count date	Lets the team plan observation of the count
Inventory	Final priced inventory listing	Year end	Ties quantities and costs to the balance
Inventory	Obsolete or slow-moving stock reserve	Year end	Supports the write-down estimate
Inventory	Shipping and receiving documents around the count	Days before and after the count	Checks cutoff
Fixed assets and leases	Fixed asset roll-forward	Full year	Opening cost plus additions minus disposals equals closing cost
Fixed assets and leases	Invoices for large additions	Full year	Supports cost and ownership
Fixed assets and leases	Support for disposals	Full year	Shows assets removed were actually sold or scrapped
Fixed assets and leases	Depreciation schedule	Full year	Supports the expense and accumulated depreciation
Fixed assets and leases	Lease schedule and lease agreements	Active during the year	Terms drive the lease accounting
Debt	Loan and line-of-credit agreements	Active during the year	Rates, maturities and covenants live here
Debt	Debt schedule (balance, rate, maturity) with lender statements	Year end	Independent support for each balance
Debt	Covenant calculations	Each test date	A breach can change the debt's classification
Equity	Equity roll-forward	Full year	Explains every change in equity
Equity	Cap table or membership register	Year end	Shows who owns what
Equity	Support for distributions and contributions	Full year	Ties owner transactions to the books
Payables and accruals	Aged payables	Year end	Shows what is owed and how old it is
Payables and accruals	Payments made after year end	First weeks of the new year	Searches for bills that should have been recorded
Payables and accruals	Accrued expenses schedule	Year end	Supports expenses incurred but not yet billed
Payroll	Payroll register summary, agreed to the ledger	Full year	Ties wages to the books
Payroll	Quarterly Forms 941 and year-end W-2/W-3 totals	Full year	Agrees what was filed to what was recorded
Payroll	Accrued payroll, bonuses and PTO	Year end	Supports amounts owed to staff at year end
Tax	Last filed federal and state income tax returns	Prior year	Starting point for the current year
Tax	Income tax provision workpapers, if prepared	Year end	Supports the tax balances
Tax	Sales and use tax returns	Full year	Agrees the liability to the filings
Tax	Notices from tax authorities	Full year and after year end	Open notices can mean an unrecorded liability
Legal and subsequent events	List of outside attorneys	Full year	So the auditor can send legal letters
Legal and subsequent events	Description of open claims and litigation	As of the report date	Possible liabilities and disclosures
Legal and subsequent events	Significant events after year end	Up to the report date	May need adjustment or disclosure
Legal and subsequent events	Related-party list	Full year	Related-party transactions need disclosure

This is a starting list, not an audit program. The engagement partner decides what applies.

Want this as an editable PBC list template? The free PBC list generator starts you with eight core items: trial balance, general ledger, bank statements, bank reconciliations, receivables aging, payables aging, payroll summary and fixed asset register. Add the rest of this table, set the periods, mark what you already have, and export to CSV. It holds up to 100 items and runs in your browser.

How does a PBC list change by engagement?

The deeper the assurance, the longer the list. An audit asks for the support behind balances. A review or compilation mostly asks for the books and the reconciliations. A tax engagement asks for the source documents behind the return.

Engagement	Typical PBC focus	Items you can usually drop
Financial statement audit	The full table above, plus bank contacts for confirmations, inventory count details and the attorney list	Very little
Review	Trial balance, reconciliations, schedules behind key balances, answers to your inquiry questions	Confirmation contacts, count observation, invoices for every addition
Compilation or year-end close	Bank and card statements, reconciliations, receivables and payables agings, payroll reports, loan statements, fixed asset additions	Contracts, minutes, legal list, cutoff documents
Business tax return	Prior-year return, year-end trial balance, fixed asset additions and disposals, payroll filings, 1099s issued, estimated payments	Most of the audit-only support

For the individual and business tax side, the tax document checklist goes item by item.

A SOC 2 or controls audit runs on the same mechanics under a different name: the evidence request list. The content changes (policies, access reviews, change tickets, sample evidence for each control), but you still have one line per item, a period, an owner and a status, and the same chase at the end.

How do you write a PBC request the client can follow?

Write one line per item, and give each line five fields: what (a named document, not "bank stuff"), period (exact dates), format (system report, PDF statement or Excel schedule), due date and status. When several people on the client side gather documents, add an owner column so each person sees their own lines.

Vague line	Line the client can act on
Bank statements	Bank statements, all accounts, January to December 2026, PDF downloaded from the bank
AR	Aged receivables at 12/31/2026, run from the accounting system, agreed to the ledger
Fixed assets	Fixed asset roll-forward for 2026, Excel, with invoices for additions over your threshold
Payroll stuff	Forms 941 for all four quarters of 2026, PDF as filed

A few habits help:

One item per line. "Bank statements and reconciliations" becomes two lines, because they arrive on different days.
Group by area, in the same order every year, so a returning client recognizes the list.
Send a short list first on a large engagement, and the rest later, so the client starts with what fieldwork needs first.
Say that "N/A" is a fine answer. Without that line, a client who has nothing to send may say nothing, and the item sits as missing.

The generator has Category, Document, Period and Status (Missing, Received or Not needed). It has no due-date or owner field. Put the due date in the period column or in the cover email. For that email, the information request email templates have wording you can reuse.

How do you send a PBC list and track what is missing?

You send a PBC list by email, through audit request-list software, or with a document request tool that sends the reminders for you. Then you mark each item missing, received or not needed until nothing is outstanding. The list is not the hard part. Getting it to 100% is, and each way has a real trade-off.

1. Spreadsheet and email

Free, and everyone has it. Then the versions multiply, files arrive in separate threads, and you become the person writing "checking in on the list" every Friday.

The generator fits here. Build the list, export the CSV, and use Copy request for missing items. It writes a message that starts "Please send the following documents:" with one bullet per missing item, its period and its category. Mark what arrived, run it again, and the next chase email only lists what is still outstanding.

2. Audit request-list software

Suralink and similar tools, plus the PBC modules inside audit software, are built for audit teams. They track requests item by item and tie them to the audit file. They are heavier to set up, and the client usually has to log in to respond. For a firm doing many audits a year, that is often the right fit.

3. A document request tool that does the chasing

This is the gap I built DokuTrak for. You send the request once. Reminders go out on their own until the documents arrive, and they tell the client how many documents are still outstanding, so they read as a status update, not a nag. An optional AI first pass flags a file that looks like the wrong document, can't be read or is missing what you asked for. You accept each file or ask for a replacement. The software never accepts a file for you. Clients upload from one secure link, without creating an account.

DokuTrak does not import the generator's list. If you use both, the CSV is your working list and the request in DokuTrak is how the documents come in.

Whichever way you choose, keep one distinction straight: received is not reviewed. An item marked "Received" in a tracker means somebody marked it received. It says nothing about whether the right period came in, or whether the schedule ties out. Those are checks you make when you open the file. The flags only speed up the first look for the wrong document, an unreadable scan or missing details. The professional still opens and accepts every file.

If the chase is the part that wears you down, stop chasing clients for documents covers the habits that help, and this guide on how to track which clients still owe documents covers the tracking side across many clients at once.

After fieldwork: index what you received

Once the files are in, give the folder an index so a reviewer can find PBC item 4.2 without opening everything. Name each file by its PBC line, in list order, and keep one index page at the top of the folder.

The free document index generator does that part: paste the file names in order and it gives you numbered references (DOC-001, DOC-002 and so on) with a column for descriptions, ready to copy or download as CSV.

Start your 14-day free trial. Send the list once, let the follow-ups go out on their own, and accept every file yourself. 14-day free trial, no card. Add one only to keep going.

Sources

Footnotes

PCAOB, AS 1105: Audit Evidence, paragraphs .08, .10 and .18, retrieved 2026-10-08. https://pcaobus.org/oversight/standards/auditing-standards/details/AS1105 ↩ ↩² ↩³

What Is a PBC List? (With a Sample List by Audit Area)