Choosing an audit template

What the template picker is

Every self-audit starts the same way: you pick a template, and Verinode turns it into a run you can work through and sign. The template picker is the modal that lists every audit you can run, tells you what each one covers before you commit to it, and creates the run the moment you click Start audit. This article is about that picker: what's in the built-in catalog, what every number on a template row means, and exactly what happens the instant you pick one.

Verinode doesn't write these checklists on the fly and it doesn't grade you against a hidden bar. Every template here is a fixed set of questions with a fixed pass target, built once and reused every time you or anyone in your company runs it, so a score means the same thing this quarter as it did last quarter.

Where to find it

Open Forms from the sidebar, at /forms. Forms has three tabs rendered as a pill switcher at the top of the page: Surveys, Audits, Reviews. Click Audits. The header button on that tab reads + Add Audit (it swaps to "+ Add Survey" or "+ Add Review" on the other two tabs, so the label always matches what clicking it does). Click it and the picker opens, titled "Run an audit."

The same picker component also drives the Reviews tab, retitled "Run a review" with its own catalog (currently the 1-on-1 Performance Review template). This article covers the Audits catalog; see Self-audits: prep for a carrier auditor and Performance Reviews for the tab-level detail.

Two catalogs load into one list

The picker doesn't show one static list. It loads in two passes:

1. Instantly, the two hand-built run sheets: Internal Mock Audit Run Sheet and Job Quality Audit. These render the moment the modal opens, no loading state, no flicker.
2. A beat later, Verinode's growing library of compliance-framework checklists (OSHA programs, an EPA program, and a set of general readiness checks) loads in underneath them and appends to the list in place.

You'll sometimes see the list grow by several rows a second or two after the modal opens. That's expected: the two run sheets are bundled with the app, but the compliance frameworks are reference data Verinode maintains and can extend without shipping a new app version, so they're fetched separately. If that fetch fails for any reason, the two run sheets still work, nothing about the picker breaks.

Anatomy of a template row

Every row in the list shows the same five things, left to right and top to bottom:

• A selection dot on the left. Click anywhere on the row to select it; the dot fills solid when it's the active choice. Only one template can be selected at a time.
• The template's name, in bold.
• Estimated minutes, right-aligned on the same line (for example "25 min"). This is how long the template is expected to take to complete once you start running it, not how long the picker takes to load.
• A one-line description underneath the name, explaining what the template is for in plain language.
• A meta line underneath that, built from whichever of these apply to the template: the number of sections, the number of questions, the number of pass/fail checks among those questions, the pass target as a percentage (only shown when the template scores itself), and whether a signature is required to submit.

Clicking Start audit creates a run from whichever template's dot is currently filled. Clicking Cancel, pressing Escape, or clicking outside the modal closes it without creating anything.

The two built-in run sheets

These are hand-built, always present, and always the first two rows in the list.

Internal Mock Audit Run Sheet ("Walk through a closed claim the way a carrier auditor would. Find the gaps before the real audit does."). Estimated 25 minutes. Its meta line reads 7 sections · 23 questions · 16 checks · pass at 90% · signature required. You run it against one specific closed claim: setup (claim number, carrier), documentation compliance, procedural compliance, customer communication, billing integrity, a short action-items section, and a signed sign-off. It's the dry run of an actual carrier audit, section for section.

Job Quality Audit ("Score the quality of a job, crew, or process against a rubric. Catch what slips before the carrier does."). Estimated 12 minutes. Its meta line reads 7 sections · 18 questions · 10 checks · pass at 85% · signature required. It's a workmanship-and-safety rubric, not a paperwork dry run: you're grading the finished work itself, on-site, across workmanship, documentation, safety, and customer experience, then signing off.

Both require a signature to submit (the run form prompts for it under the "Project Manager" role) and both score by simply counting how many of their pass/fail checks you confirmed against the total. See Self-audits: prep for a carrier auditor for a full section-by-section walkthrough of both, and Completing an audit or review run for how the run itself, autosave, and signature work.

The compliance-framework library: OSHA prep and beyond

Underneath the two run sheets sits a longer, growing list of compliance-framework checklists. Verinode maintains these centrally, the same way it maintains benchmark reference data, so a new framework can be added without an app update. Every one of them shares the same shape:

• No signature required, and none show "signature required" on their row. These are completeness checks you can run solo, not a signed record for a specific claim.
• Each checklist item carries its own weight rather than counting equally, so a foundational requirement (a written program being in place, for instance) pulls more of the score than a minor recordkeeping item. The meta line still shows a single pass target, almost always 80%, that the weighted total is measured against.
• Most run five to six short checklist items grouped one-per-section, so most take around eight or nine minutes.

The flagship OSHA example is OSHA Injury & Illness Recordkeeping (300A): "Checks your OSHA injury and illness recordkeeping against 29 CFR 1904: the 300 log, the posted 300A annual summary, electronic submission where required, employee access, and five-year retention. A completeness check for inspection-readiness, not a certification of compliance." Its meta line reads 5 sections · 5 questions · 5 checks · pass at 80%, no signature.

That same OSHA-prep family covers several other written-program areas, each its own row in the picker: Hazard Communication (HazCom), Respiratory Protection, Lockout/Tagout (energy control), Hearing Conservation, Permit-Required Confined Space, Bloodborne Pathogens, Emergency Action Plan, Fall Protection, Heat Illness Prevention, and PPE Hazard Assessment. Alongside OSHA, the library also carries an EPA Lead-Safe Renovation (RRP) checklist, and a handful of broader operational readiness checks that aren't tied to a single regulation: Carrier Program Audit Readiness, Job File Audit Readiness, Insurance & COI Completeness, Fleet & Driver Safety, IICRC Firm Certification & Standing, and Sell-Side / Diligence Readiness.

Picking one and what happens next

Select a row (the dot fills) and click Start audit (the button reads "Opening…" while it works). Verinode immediately writes a new record under your account: the template's name becomes the run's title, its full question and section layout is copied in as-is, its scoring rule and pass target are attached, and it's marked active from that moment. The picker closes and the completion shell opens right where you are, as an overlay over Forms, no page reload. See Completing an audit or review run for exactly what that shell looks like and how autosave, required questions, and signatures work inside it.

Nothing you pick here is shared, benchmarked, or visible to anyone outside your company by default. It's your checklist, run on your own account, for your own use.

If something goes wrong (a network hiccup, a permissions issue), the modal stays open and an error message appears in red at the bottom-left of the footer instead of closing, so you can try again without losing your selection.

Empty state

If Verinode ever has no templates to show for a catalog (this shouldn't happen for Audits, since the two built-in run sheets always ship with the app, but the picker is built to handle it), the modal shows a centered message instead of a list: "No audit templates yet", with the body "Templates ship with the product. None are cataloged for this kind right now."

Best-practice example

An operator gets word that their largest TPA program has scheduled a routine audit in six weeks. Two moves, both from this picker: first, Internal Mock Audit Run Sheet against the most recent closed claim with that TPA, so the team fixes any documentation gaps while the file is still fresh. Second, since the same audit will likely check safety paperwork, OSHA Hazard Communication (HazCom) Program and OSHA Injury & Illness Recordkeeping (300A) from the compliance-framework list, both under ten minutes each, to confirm the written programs and logs are actually in place before anyone outside the company asks to see them.

Related reading

• Audits: the overview
• Self-audits: prep for a carrier auditor
• Completing an audit or review run
• QA audits launchpad
• Performance Reviews: structured, scored 1-on-1s
• Compliance audits
• The decision workspace
• Acting on decisions