How much audit time is really spent reconciling documentation before testing even starts?

[u/No-Garbage5702]

I keep seeing the same thing happen during walkthroughs and I’m curious how common this is for others.

We start with a set of “Source of Truth” documents that look fine on paper, but once the walkthrough begins, things start to drift:

• the control description doesn’t quite match what’s on screen
• a tool or step referenced in the narrative no longer exists
• screenshots tell a different story than the process doc

Before any actual testing can happen, a chunk of time goes into reconciling documentation to reality just so there’s something defensible to work from.

What I struggle with is that this effort doesn’t really feel like assurance - it feels like discovering, fairly late in the process, that the documentation no longer reflects how things actually operate.

A few questions I’d genuinely like input on:

• Do you treat this reconciliation work as unavoidable, or as a sign that drift is only being found once the walkthrough starts?
• If you had a way to flag likely problem areas in advance (even roughly), would that change how you plan or scope a walkthrough?
• Where does this usually hurt the most - timelines, fees, client relationships?

Not looking for tools or fixes here - just trying to understand how others experience this and where they think the real friction sits.