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Note added at 14 mins (2009-10-15 22:52:17 GMT)
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2-year period

audit (as defined by OED):

1. gen. A hearing, an audience; esp. a judicial hearing of complaints, a judicial examination. arch.

2. Official examination of accounts with verification by reference to witnesses and vouchers. (Accounts were originally oral: cf. Matt. xxv. 19–30; Luke xvi. 2–7.)

3. fig. A searching examination or solemn rendering of accounts; esp. the Day of Judgement.

4. A periodical settlement of accounts between landlord and tenants; a yearly, half-yearly, or quarterly rent-paying; hence, receipts, revenue (obs.).

5. A statement of account; a balance-sheet as prepared for the auditor; lit. and fig. arch. or Obs.

6. attrib., as in audit-book, -day, -office; audit ale, ellipt. audit, ale of special quality brewed (at certain Colleges in the English Universities), originally for use on the day of audit; audit-house, -room, a building or room appendant to a cathedral, used for the transaction of business; audit trail, (a) Accounting, a means of verifying the detailed transactions underlying any item in an accounting record; (b) Computing, a record of the computing processes which have been applied to a particular set of source data, showing each stage of processing and allowing the original data to be reconstituted; a record of the transactions to which a database or a file has been subjected; cf. trace n.1 12a.


APPENDED FROM NEW EDITION (draft partial entry June 2002)

audit, n.

Business. An evaluation (esp. by formal, systematic review) of the effectiveness of the management, working practices, and procedures of a company or other professional body, usually conducted by independent auditors or external consultants. Also: the practice of carrying out such investigations at regular intervals or as part of a continuous process.
Such an audit may investigate an organization as a whole or specific aspects of its operations; hence freq. with modifying word (cf. efficiency audit s.v. efficiency n. 5, personnel audit s.v. personnel n. 3).
The process is sometimes described as having three distinct stages—observation, documentation, action—known as the ‘audit cycle’.

Audit Commission, an independent body that monitors and evaluates the performance or practices of a particular organization; (spec. in Brit. Polit.) an independent body established in 1983 to supervise and advise on public spending (esp. that of local authorities) on behalf of central government.

audit committee Accounting, a committee set up by a company or other institution to supervise the auditing of its accounts.