You will run a self-audit on three files and build a habit that keeps your next files clean.
Finding a fault in your own file is far more comfortable than having someone else find it, and pride is the smaller part of the reason. When you spot a fault early, you can learn from it before it repeats across another twenty cases. By the time a reviewer spots one, it has already cost you, and it is rarely alone. This exercise is the self-audit, done properly, followed by the one habit that prevents most faults from happening at all.
You need the checklist you built in lesson 5.2, What reviewers look for in a sampled case, and three of your own files. If you are not yet a representative, use three practice files from this course, such as the recommendation file from lesson 4.5, or anonymised files your supervisor is willing to share.
Take the first file and work through your checklist item by item. For each item, mark it as met only if the file itself shows it. Your memory of the meeting does not count, for the same reason it did not count in lesson 2.5, Score your last five meetings against the outcomes: a reviewer cannot see it.
Be strict. An existing cover section that lists the client's individual policies and says nothing about the group cover you know they had does not meet the item. Neither does a disclosure record with a signature and no sign of the client's understanding. Write a few words beside each missed item saying what is missing.
Repeat for the second and third files. Give each file a score, such as 9 of 12.
Now lay the three marked checklists side by side and read across the rows to see which items were missed in more than one file.
This is the most useful part of the exercise. Something missed once may be a one-off, the result of a busy day or an unusual client. When the same item is missed in two or three files, you are looking at a habit. It comes from the way you run meetings or write files, and it will keep appearing until you change the habit. Those are the faults to work on first, even if a one-off fault looks more serious.
Some faults can be put right now, and they should be, as long as you do it honestly. If a review was done but not recorded, add a note with today's date saying when it happened and what was discussed, based on records you can point to, such as your calendar or messages. If a client's document was received but not filed, file it. If a follow-up question was never asked, ask it now and record the answer with today's date.
What you must never do is backfill. That means writing information into a fact-find or file as if it had been recorded at the time, when it was not. It is tempting with an obvious gap, such as a blank existing cover section for a client you are fairly sure had no other policies. But adding it now, undated, as if it were part of the original record, falsifies the file. Lesson 4.4, When the client wants something you did not recommend, made the same point about rewriting fact-finds. A dated note that says "information not recorded at the time; confirmed with client on [date]" is honest, and a reviewer can work with it.
Most of the repeated faults you find will trace back to the same cause lesson 5.3, Common file faults and how to avoid them, identified: files written too long after the meeting. So the habit to build is a writing slot on the same day as every client meeting.
Open your calendar for the next month. After every client meeting already booked, add a block of at least thirty minutes, on the same day, labelled with the client's initials. Protect those blocks the way you would protect the meeting itself. When you book new meetings, book the writing slot at the same time.
Daniel audits three of his files against a twelve-item checklist. The scores are examples. File one scores 9 of 12, file two scores 10 and file three scores 8. Across all three, that is 27 of 36 items met, or 75 percent.
That total tells him little on its own, but laying the checklists side by side tells him more. One item is missed in all three files: no alternatives recorded in the rationale. Another is missed in two: disclosure records with a signature and no evidence of understanding. The other misses are one-offs: a missing date on one document, a CPF balance recorded without the date it was read, and one fact-find with no note of declined information.
He fixes what he can. The undated document gets a dated note explaining when it was received, based on the email it came with. The other gaps cannot be fixed honestly, since the information was never recorded at the time, so he lists them as faults and leaves the original records as they are.
His two habits to change are clear: write alternatives into every rationale, and record the client's own explanation of what they bought. And he books a thirty-minute writing slot after each of his eleven meetings in the coming month.
When you are done, you have three scored checklists, each with notes on what is missing. Below them is a short list of the faults that repeated across files, with the habit behind each one. Any fixes you made are dated and honest. And your calendar for the next month shows a same-day writing slot after every client meeting.
The activity below asks you to complete each of those steps and keep the calendar going for at least a month, until the writing slot feels like part of the meeting.
Score three files against your checklist, list the repeated faults and block a same-day writing slot after each meeting for the next month.
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