Calculate your potential savings with our ROI Calculator
ROI Calculator1 What “We Can Pull It If Needed” Really Means in Practice
Common scenarios where this mindset appears
3 The Hidden Assumptions Behind This Strategy
4 Audit Timelines vs. Operational Reality
5 Data Integrity Risks of On-Demand Evidence
6 Compliance and Regulatory Consequences
7 Impact on Audit Credibility and Trust
8 Operational and Cultural Costs
9 Why “After-the-Fact” Evidence Is Often Weaker
10 The Role of Documentation and Continuous Readiness
11 Better Alternatives to the “Pull It Later” Mindset
12 How Audit Findings Often Trace Back to This Approach
13 Building an Audit-Ready Operating Model
Let's start with an imagination; you’re in a conference room (or a Zoom call) with an auditor. The atmosphere is polite but tense. They glance at a list and ask for a simple evidence sample, maybe a training record from six months ago or a specific version of a standard operating procedure (SOP).
Your heart rate spikes, just a little. You don’t have it right in front of you. You smile and say, “Sure, we have that. We can pull it if needed.”
The auditor nods and moves on. You exhale. But deep down, you know that "pulling it" isn’t going to be a five-minute task. It’s going to be a frantic, three-hour archaeological dig through shared drives, archived emails, and Slack threads. This common phrase, "We can pull it if needed", sounds confident, but in the world of compliance, it’s often a smoke signal for chaos.
When you rely on digging things up after they are asked for, you are playing a dangerous game with your organization's reputation and operational sanity. Let's dig into why this mindset is a trap.
When a team relies on the ability to "pull" evidence on demand rather than having it ready to go, it usually implies that their compliance house isn't fully in order. It suggests that data isn't living where it should; in an organized, accessible system, but is instead scattered across the digital equivalent of a messy garage.
You’ll often see this mindset crop up in specific, high-stress situations. It happens when:
Why it often signals reactive, not proactive, audit readiness
Relying on retrieving data "if needed" is the definition of reactive compliance. It assumes that the default state of your data is hidden, and that making it visible requires a special effort.
Proactive readiness, on the other hand, means the evidence is already there, staring at you in the face. If you have to "go find" the proof that you followed your own rules, you aren't just risking a delay; you're signaling to the auditor that your compliance posture is an afterthought, something you do only when someone is watching.
The biggest problem with the "we'll pull it later" approach is that it is built on a foundation of optimism. We tend to assume the best-case scenario for our future selves, failing to account for the reality of how messy business operations can actually get.
Overconfidence in data availability
We convince ourselves that just because a document exists, it is available. But existence and availability are two very different things. A signed contract might technically exist on a backup server in a warehouse three states away, but if you need it in 15 minutes to satisfy an auditor's query, it might as well not exist at all.
We often assume our data is 'good enough' to be pulled later, but that optimism is expensive.
Forbes highlights research estimating that poor data quality costs organizations an average of $12.9 million annually. If you’re relying on data, you haven't verified recently, you are likely part of that statistic.
If your team is burning 30% of their day just looking for files during normal operations, imagine the panic and failure rate when an auditor is tapping their foot waiting for an answer.
Misjudging time, ownership, and system access
We also assume we will have access when the time comes. But what if the only person with admin rights to that legacy database is on vacation in Bali? What if your login credentials expired last week? What if the file is password-protected, and the person who set the password left the company two years ago? These aren't edge cases; they are the bread and butter of audit failures.
Assuming people will remember processes accurately
Finally, there is a memory trap. We assume that if we have to reconstruct a timeline of events from six months ago, we will remember exactly why we made an exception to a policy. But human memory is fallible. Without contemporaneous documentation (notes taken at the time), you are likely to forget key details, leading to conflicting stories when the auditor asks clarifying questions.
There is a fantasy version of an audit where you have weeks to prepare, and the rest of the business pauses to help you. Then there is reality.
How short audit notice periods expose gaps
Regulatory bodies and major clients are increasingly moving toward short-notice or unannounced audits. When you only have 24 or 48 hours to prepare, the "we can pull it" strategy collapses instantly. You simply do not have the man-hours to manually locate, verify, and format evidence for hundreds of control points in that timeframe.
Competing priorities during audits
Audits don't happen in a vacuum. They happen while you are trying to close the quarter, launch a new product, or deal with a PR crisis. If your strategy relies on pulling key staff away from their day jobs to go on a scavenger hunt for documents, you are forcing a choice between passing the audit and running the business. Usually, both suffer.
The cost of last-minute scrambling
The "scramble" is expensive. It involves overtime pay, delayed projects, and high stress. It creates a "war room" mentality where highly paid executives spend their time formatting spreadsheets instead of making strategic decisions. This isn't just poor compliance; it's poor resource management.
When you scramble to pull data at the last minute, you introduce a massive risk of error. In the pharmaceutical and medical device worlds, this touches on the concept of ALCOA+ (Attributable, Legible, Contemporaneous, Original, Accurate). "Pulling it later" often violates the "Contemporaneous" and "Original" principles.
Version control issues
When you ask three different people to "find the policy," you might get three different versions. One pulls the draft from their desktop, one pulls the final PDF from the intranet, and one pulls an old version from an email attachment. Which one do you show the auditor? If you hand over the wrong version, one that doesn't match the actual practice you followed, you have just handed them a finding on a silver platter.
Missing, altered, or incomplete records
The rush to find evidence often leads to "good enough" data. Maybe a signature page is missing, so you just submit the body of the document. Maybe a date is wrong, so someone is tempted to "fix" it (which is fraud, by the way).
Manual extraction errors
If you have to export data from a system to Excel to show it to an auditor, you are introducing a manual step where rows can be deleted, formulas can break, or formatting can obscure the truth. Auditors trust raw system data; they are inherently suspicious of spreadsheets that were "pulled" and manipulated five minutes ago.
Regulators aren't stupid. They know the difference between a company that has a culture of compliance and a company that is just good at test-taking.
How regulators interpret delayed or reconstructed evidence
If every request you get from an auditor is met with, "Let us get back to you on that tomorrow," the auditor begins to form a hypothesis. They start to think that you don't actually have control over your processes. Delays are often interpreted as a lack of control effectiveness. If you can't produce the evidence easily, how can you possibly use that data to manage your quality or safety in real-time?
Risk of audit findings, penalties, or scope expansion
This is the most dangerous part. When an auditor senses that you are struggling to find documents, they don't stop; they dig deeper. They expand the scope. "Oh, you're having trouble finding the training records for Q1? Let's look at Q2 and Q3 as well, just to be safe."
Suddenly, a routine check becomes a forensic investigation. This leads to more findings, which leads to 483s (in the FDA world), warning letters, or stiff financial penalties.
You might think delaying compliance saves money, but the data says otherwise.
According to a report analyzed by Corporate Compliance Insights, the cost of non-compliance is actually 2.71 times higher than the cost of maintaining compliance. That 'savings' you’re engaging in is actually a massive liability.
This statistic proves that the "save money by doing the bare minimum" approach is actually a financial disaster waiting to happen.
Auditing is, at its core, human interaction. It relies on trust. The auditor needs to trust that you are telling the truth and that you are in control.
Auditor confidence and professional skepticism
Auditors are trained in "professional skepticism." They are taught to doubt. When you delay evidence, you feed that skepticism. You turn a neutral observer into a suspicious detective. Once you lose their confidence, the burden of proof becomes much heavier. They will stop accepting your summaries and start demanding raw data for everything.
Long-term effects on audit relationships
If you deal with the same auditors or regulatory bodies annually, they remember. They remember the company that had everything organized on a nice digital dashboard, and they remember the company that made them wait four hours for a binder. Being the "messy" company means your next audit will start off harder than the last one ended.
The "pull it later" mindset doesn't just hurt the audit; it hurts your people.
Employee burnout during audits
There are instances where entire quality and compliance teams quit after a particularly brutal audit. The stress of the "scramble"—the late nights, the yelling, the fear of failure, takes a toll. If your operating model relies on heroism rather than systems, you will burn out your best people.
It’s not just about stress; it’s about wasted time.
McKinsey & Company reports that the average interaction worker spends nearly 20% of their workweek just looking for internal information. When you add an audit 'fire drill' on top of that existing inefficiency, it’s no wonder your best teams burn out.
Normalizing fire-drill behavior
When you survive an audit by scrambling, you inadvertently teach the organization that scrambling works. You normalize "fire-drill" behavior. Employees learn that they don't need to be diligent about documentation day-to-day because "we'll just fix it before the audit." This erodes the culture of quality.
Knowledge silos and key-person dependency
This strategy often relies on "The Guy." You know The Guy. He's the only one who knows how to query the old SQL database. If The Guy gets sick, retires, or wins the lottery, your audit strategy evaporates. Building a system that relies on specific individuals rather than standardized processes is a critical vulnerability.
Evidence created or assembled months after the activity took place is inherently less valuable than evidence captured in the moment.
Challenges proving control effectiveness retroactively
To pass an audit, you need to prove that a control (like a safety check) was working at the time the activity happened. If you pull out a report today that says, "All Systems Green," it doesn't necessarily prove that the system was green six months ago. It just proves that it's green now. Retroactive evidence often fails to capture the "state of the world" at the moment of the transaction, which is what the auditor actually cares about.
Difficulty demonstrating consistency over time
Auditors are looking for trends. They want to see that you are consistent. If your evidence gathering is sporadic and reactive, you will have gaps. You might have great records for January (when you expected an audit) and terrible records for July (when everyone was on vacation). These gaps scream "inconsistency" to an auditor.
The only cure for the "pull it later" disease is a shift toward continuous readiness.
Benefits of maintaining audit-ready documentation
Suppose an audit where, when asked for a document, you simply turn off your screen and show a dashboard that is already up to date. Stress evaporates. You answer questions confidently. The audit finishes early.
Audit-ready documentation means that records are finalized, tagged, and stored correctly as soon as they are created. It means the "filing" is part of the work, not a separate chore you do later.
Shifting from reactive to embedded compliance
This requires a mindset shift. Compliance shouldn't be something you do; it should be how you work. When compliance is embedded, the evidence is a natural byproduct of the process. You don't have to "create" evidence for the auditor; you just have to show them your work.
So, if "pulling it later" is bad, what should you do instead?
Continuous control monitoring
Instead of checking your controls once a year, use software to monitor them continuously. If a training certification expires, the system should flag it today, not waiting for an auditor to find it in six months.
Real-time evidence collection
Invest in systems that timestamp and archive activities automatically. If a user approves a document, that approval should be logged in an immutable audit trail immediately. No one should ever have to "write a memo" to explain what happened; the system log should tell the story.
Using audit management or GRC tools
Technology is oftentimes a savior. Modern Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) tools act as a central repository for all your evidence. They map your documents to specific regulations (like ISO 27001 or FDA 21 CFR Part 11). When an auditor asks about a specific control, you don't search folders; you click the control in your GRC tool, and all the relevant evidence is already attached.
If you analyze the root cause of most major audit findings, you will rarely find malicious intent. You will usually find disorganization.
Common findings linked to poor evidence practices
Lessons learned from failed audits
The companies that fail are usually the ones that treated the audit as a cram session. The companies that succeed are the ones that treated the audit as a "show and tell" of their daily reality. The lesson is simple: You cannot inspect quality into a product, and you cannot scramble compliance into a record.
Finally, how do you fix this permanently? You have to build an operating model that values readiness.
Governance, ownership, and accountability
Every piece of data needs an owner. Not a department, a person. That person needs to be accountable for ensuring their data is audit-ready at all times. If the data isn't ready, it's not an IT problem; it's a governance problem.
Simple practices to improve readiness without heavy overhead
You don't need a million-dollar budget to fix this. Start small:
By moving away from "We can pull it if needed" and toward "Here it is," you transform audits from a terrifying trial into a routine verification of your excellence. It saves money, it saves sanity, and frankly, it just looks a whole lot more professional.
