How to prepare for your V2.1 audit

Modified on Mon, 2 Feb at 4:29 PM

Reaching the audit stage of B Corp certification is a significant step in your certification journey. The audit is an independent, third-party review conducted by a B Lab-approved assurance provider to verify that your company’s policies, practices, and systems meet the requirements of the B Lab Standards V2.1.

While the audit process can feel complex, thoughtful preparation can help you feel confident throughout the process. This article walks through steps and guidance to prepare for an audit on B Lab’s V2.1 standards. For more information on the audit process, read What to expect from your initial B Corp Certification audit.

Prepare Your Team
A smooth audit depends not only on strong documentation, but on having the right people involved from the start. Building a cross-functional internal team helps ensure information is accurate, complete, and reflective of how your business actually operates.

This typically includes:

A board or governance representative who can provide oversight perspective and access to board approvals, meeting minutes, and governance documentation
A human resources representative to support people-related requirements, such as employee data, contracts, and workplace policies
A finance or operations lead who understands systems, controls, and data tracking

In many companies, a sustainability or impact lead plays a central coordinating role, helping interpret the standards, align evidence across teams, track progress, and ensure commitments translate into practice.

For smaller companies, the audit team may be just one or two people covering multiple roles. What matters most is ensuring that the individuals involved understand the relevant parts of the business, can access required documentation, and are available to participate in interviews. Clear ownership, early coordination, and setting aside dedicated time are often more important than team size.

Prepare Your Documentation

Documentation is central to the audit process. Companies are expected to provide evidence demonstrating compliance with each applicable sub-requirement in the B Lab Standards. All documentation is uploaded during the self-assessment phase, and doing this early helps ensure your responses are accurate, consistent, and well supported. For guidance on uploading documents, refer to the article How to Upload Documents in the Self-Assessment.

However, the audit period also provides an opportunity to address any remaining gaps or clarifications. If a document is too sensitive to upload, a comment should be left to indicate that it will be shared during the live audits, at which time it must be readily available to present.

Before the audit, review both the Compliance Criteria and Clarifying Compliance Criteria for each applicable sub-requirement. These criteria are binding and describe what auditors will verify. They are available in the B Lab Standards PDFs and within the Self-Assessment tool.

When preparing supporting documentation consider the following:

Completeness – Does the documentation address all elements of the Compliance Criteria and Clarifying Compliance Criteria?
Relevance – Does the evidence clearly relate to the specific requirement being assessed?
Integration – Does the documentation demonstrate that the requirement is meaningfully implemented, rather than addressed in a superficial or “box-ticking” way?

Evidence may take many forms, including

Policies and procedures
Contracts and agreements
Commitments and public statements
Approvals from leadership or governing bodies
Strategies, plans, and roadmaps
Assessments, monitoring processes, and analyses
Data tracking and performance records
Publicly available information, such as website pages or reports

For examples of evidence for each sub-requirement, please refer to the Evidence Examples for V2 Standards articles.

Common documentation issues include missing information, submitting documents that do not directly address the requirement, or adopting policies that are not embedded in actual business practices. Taking time to clearly map each piece of evidence to the relevant requirement can significantly reduce follow-up questions during the audit.

Know Your Audit Plan

Once the completed self-assessment with the documentation is submitted, the focus shifts from preparation to active engagement during the audit. Organization, availability, and communication are key to a smooth experience. Your assurance provider will share the audit plan at least 10 business days before the audit begins. The audit begins once the audit plan has been agreed upon by your company and the assurance provider

Take time to review the plan carefully so you understand what to expect.

The audit plan outlines:

The audit scope including the B Lab Standards to be audited (Year 0, 3, 5)
Whether the audit will be remote, onsite, or a combination of the two
Dates, duration, and the number of site visits (if you have multiple sites within your certification scope)
Roles and responsibilities of the audit team members

Based on the details of the audit plan you can begin to plan logistics.

Confirm availability of interviewees and access to documents.
Identify relevant personnel to keep informed and establish a channel to share communications and updates.
Invite relevant personnel to attend meetings.
Arrange for guides to be available during onsite visits.
Confirm any health and safety requirements for visitors.
Make office facilities (including space and meeting rooms) available to conduct interviews and review information.
Arrange appropriate technology facilities for any remote activities.
Arrange for any personal protective equipment the auditors may need when visiting sites
Allocate time for inductions and introductions.
Advise all staff of the audit arrangements.

Know your timelines

Understanding audit timelines will help you plan resources and avoid delays.

Remote audits are generally completed within 10 business days for Companies without Workers through Medium certification tracks and up to 15 business days for Large to XX Large certification tracks. For companies with multiple sites, additional audit time is needed to audit the number of sites sampled in the audit plan. Given the quick timelines, it’s important to have teams available to respond to requests quickly and provide documentation that may be requested by the auditor.

Onsite audits may be conducted in one or two stages. Where a two-stage approach is used, a remote desk review (Stage 1) is followed by an onsite visit (Stage 2), typically within three months.

Following the closing meeting, the assurance provider uploads the audit report and corrective action report to the B Audit Platform within 30 calendar days. You will be given clear timelines to address any identified nonconformities. Major nonconformities must be closed within the specified six months after receiving the corrective action report for certification to proceed, while minor nonconformities must be closed by the next audit. For more information about timelines to close nonconformities, refer to the article “Major vs. minor nonconformities: What they mean for your certification status”.

In summary

By engaging the right internal stakeholders, preparing clear and well-aligned documentation, participating attentively during the audit stage, and understanding key timelines, companies can approach the B Corp Certification audit with confidence. When treated as a learning opportunity rather than a compliance hurdle, the audit becomes a valuable checkpoint that strengthens internal systems and supports continuous improvement throughout the B Corp certification cycle.