How to prepare your self‑assessment for audit

Modified on Mon, 22 Jun at 7:43 AM

Completing your Self Assessment is the core step where your company evaluates its level of preparedness and compliance with the B Lab Standards before the certification audit. This article explains when to start the self‑assessment and how to use tools in B Impact to improve your company’s impact and manage audit readiness.

To be ready for audit, you are expected to:

Work through all applicable sub‑requirements
Implement impact improvement actions to meet each applicable sub‑requirement
Provide a clear answer and supporting evidence for each applicable sub‑requirement

Auditors use your completed self‑assessment, along with your certification scope, as the starting point for each third‑party audit.

When to start working in your Self Assessment

You should only start working on the Self Assessment after both of these are complete in B Impact:

Certification Setup: You have gone through and completed all four sections to confirm your initial eligibility, scope and track. If you have not yet completed this step, see the article Step‑by‑step guide: Completing certification setup in B Impact.

Foundation Requirements: You have answered the Foundation Requirements that determine whether you are eligible for B Corp Certification and what additional requirements apply. If you have not yet completed this step, see the article How to find and work on your Foundation Requirements.

Completing these steps ensures that you see the correct sub‑requirements based on your company’s scope. Skipping them, or only partially completing them, may generate an inaccurate version of the self‑assessment that cannot be used for auditing purposes.

Once you have finished these steps, B Impact generates a tailored set of sub‑requirements based on your scope, track and risk profile.

How to document sub‑requirements in B Impact

B Impact offers built-in tools to support internal project management and collaboration, allowing you to track your progress toward meeting each sub-requirement through its various features.

How to access sub-requirements in B Impact

Log into B Impact and open your company workspace.
In the left‑hand menu, select Assessment.
Under Assessment, select Impact Topics.

You will see the sub‑requirements organized by Impact Topic.

Features and helpful resources

Within each sub-requirement, you’ll find features and supplementary resources to help you understand and implement the requirement. These may include guidance, recommendations, implementation tools, and links to additional resources. You’ll also see terms and definitions that clarify how key concepts are defined and applied within the standards.

For each sub-requirement, you can:

Assign a due date and a responsible team member. For guidance on how to add a member in B Impact check this article.
Add comments to coordinate internally, ask questions, or track decisions
Enter a status to help track progress

These features are mainly used by you and your team members and are not reviewed by B Lab or the Assurance providers until the audit phase has started.

Status	When to use it
Not started	Default status when you have not reviewed the requirement.
In Progress	Someone is actively working on this requirement (e.g. collecting data, drafting or updating a policy, clarifying scope). Keep this until both the answer and evidence are nearly final.
Done: Evidence ready	You have uploaded appropriate evidence, and written a short, clear comment explaining how the evidence supports the requirement. For guidance on uploading documents, see the articles How to Upload Documents in the Self-Assessment and How to use the Documentation Hub. For sub-requirements with conditions that do not apply to your company. For these, clearly state why the sub-requirement does not apply. This status indicates that the requirement is audit‑ready.
Not Applicable	Only for sub-requirements with an options menu. For these requirements, the company can choose the actions to implement from the options menu, while respecting the imposed number, specified in the compliance criteria of each relevant requirement.
Variance Approved	Only when a variance has been approved for a specific sub-requirement. A variance is a formally approved, time-bound exception to a B Lab Standard sub-requirement. Variances are granted only in exceptional circumstances, when compliance with the requirement is impossible due to objective limitations such as legal, technical, or security reasons. To learn more, see the article What is a variance and how to request one.