Materials Consistency Audit

What it is

Every organisation carries a long tail of materials that were correct when written: the credentials deck, the about page, the exhibition banner, the email signature boilerplate, the newsletter template, the partner’s description of you on their site. Facts change and the tail does not. This template is a structured comparison of every live material against a single source of truth, producing a log of discrepancies with severity, owner and fix.

By the end you have a fix list, a view of which materials drift most, and a check that can be repeated each quarter. AI does the comparison: give it the source of truth and one material at a time and it will list every difference. You decide what is a must-fix and who owns it.

When to use it

Use this template when:

• Something has changed that appears in many places: a figure, a leadership name, a product name, a legal entity, a strapline
• A prospect, journalist or new joiner has spotted an inconsistency
• You are preparing for a launch, a tender, an inspection or a funding round and everything will be read closely
• You are setting up a regular hygiene check for materials nobody owns day to day
• A rebrand or restructure has landed and the long tail has not been swept

Don’t use this template if:

• There is no agreed source of truth yet; build that first with the Key Messages Grid and the Proof Points Bank
• The materials are all controlled from one template that has already been updated
• You need a tone-of-voice review rather than a facts check; that is the Brand Voice Audit

Inputs needed

Before starting, gather:

• The source of truth: a single document with current facts (numbers, dates, names, titles, legal entities, locations), current descriptions (what you do, for whom), current messages and any wording that is fixed
• The inventory of materials: every live item, with location, owner, last updated and audience
• The text of each material, exported or pasted; for decks and PDFs, the text layer is enough
• A severity scale the team agrees on (below is a starting point)

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The template

Audit header

Source of truth: [Document name, version, date, owner] Audit date: [Date] Auditor: [Name] Materials in scope: [Count, and the inventory reference]

Materials inventory

#	Material	Location	Owner	Last updated	Audience	Audited	Discrepancies
1	[e.g. Credentials deck]	[Drive link]	[Role]	[Date]	[External, prospects]	Yes / No	[Count]
2	[e.g. About page]	[URL]	[Role]	[Date]	[Public]

Discrepancy log

#	Material	What it says	What the source says	Type	Severity	Fix	Owner	Due	Status
1	[Material]	[Quoted text]	[Quoted text]	Figure / Name / Claim / Description / Date / Legal / Tone	Must-fix / Should-fix / Note	[The replacement wording]	[Role]	[Date]	Open / Fixed

Severity scale (adjust to taste)

• Must-fix: wrong legal entity, regulated claim, price, date, named person or title, safety or compliance wording, anything a customer or regulator would act on
• Should-fix: superseded figure, old product name, retired strapline, description that no longer matches the offer
• Note: stylistic drift, an older but not wrong phrasing, a missing new message

Summary

• Materials audited: [N of N]
• Discrepancies: [N], of which must-fix [N], should-fix [N], note [N]
• Materials with the most drift: [List]
• Facts that appear wrong in three or more places: [List; these need a rule, not a fix]
• Next audit: [Date]

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AI prompt

Base prompt

I am auditing our communications materials for consistency against a single source of truth.

Source of truth (current, correct):
[PASTE THE SOURCE OF TRUTH: facts, figures, names, titles, dates, legal entity, descriptions, key messages, fixed wording]

Material to check: [NAME OF MATERIAL, WHERE IT LIVES, AUDIENCE]
[PASTE THE MATERIAL'S TEXT]

Compare the material against the source of truth and list every discrepancy in a table with these columns: what the material says (quoted exactly); what the source says (quoted exactly); type (Figure, Name, Claim, Description, Date, Legal, Tone); severity using this scale: Must-fix (wrong legal entity, regulated claim, price, date, named person or title, compliance wording); Should-fix (superseded figure, old product name, retired strapline, description that no longer matches); Note (stylistic drift, older but not wrong phrasing, a missing current message); and the replacement wording.

Rules: only report differences you can quote from both texts. If the material contains a claim the source of truth does not cover, list it separately under "Not in source" so I can decide whether the source needs extending. Do not rewrite the material; produce the log only.

Prompt variations

Variation 1 – Many materials, one change:

We have changed [THE FACT: e.g. our CEO's name, our headcount, our product name] from [OLD] to [NEW]. Here are the texts of [N] materials: [PASTE EACH, LABELLED]. Find every occurrence of the old version, including variants and abbreviations, and any sentence whose sense depends on the old fact even if it does not quote it. List by material with the exact line and the replacement.

Variation 2 – Two materials that should agree:

Here are two materials that should describe the same organisation identically on the facts: [MATERIAL A] and [MATERIAL B]. Neither is the source of truth. List every point where they differ on a fact, figure, name, date or description, and for each say which is more likely to be current and why, based only on internal evidence such as dates in the text. Flag where I will need to check a source.

Variation 3 – Build the source of truth from the best material:

We do not have a single source of truth. Here is our most recent, most carefully checked material: [PASTE]. Extract from it a structured fact sheet with sections for: organisation facts (legal name, founded, size, locations, leadership); what we do and for whom; products and services with current names; key messages; figures and proof points with the date each was current; fixed wording. Mark anything that looks like it may date quickly so I can add a review date.

Variation 4 – Partner and third-party descriptions:

Here is how we describe ourselves: [PASTE BOILERPLATE]. Here is how we are described on [N] partner, directory or event sites: [PASTE EACH, WITH URL]. For each, list what is wrong or out of date, rate it Must-fix, Should-fix or Note, and draft a two-line request to the site owner asking for the correction with the replacement text.

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Human review checklist

• Is the source of truth itself current, dated and owned, and has someone checked it before the audit?
• Have all quoted discrepancies been verified against the actual material, not only the pasted text?
• Are must-fixes limited to things a customer, regulator or journalist would act on?
• Does every open discrepancy have an owner and a date?
• Have facts wrong in three or more places been turned into a rule (a template field, a shared snippet) rather than three fixes?
• Have “Not in source” items been added to the source of truth or deliberately excluded?
• Have materials that could not be audited (a printed banner, a partner site) been listed with what needs to happen?
• Is the next audit date set?
• Have you checked your AI Use Policy before pasting internal materials into a tool?

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Tips for success

Fix the source first. An audit against an out-of-date fact sheet propagates the error. Spend the first ten minutes on the source of truth.

Audit one material per prompt. Pasting eight documents at once produces a muddled log. One at a time is slower and far more accurate.

Look for the pattern, not only the instance. A figure wrong in four places is a process problem. Give it a single home (a template field, a snippet, a variable) so the next change happens once.

Include the materials you do not control. Partner sites, directories and event listings describe you too, and they drift furthest. Log them, and draft the correction request while the fix is fresh.

Make it boring. The value is in repetition. A 45-minute quarterly audit that always runs beats an ambitious annual one that slips.

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Common pitfalls

Auditing tone when the job is facts. Tone drift matters, but mixing it into this log buries the must-fixes. Run the Brand Voice Audit separately.

Trusting the log without checking the material. The AI works from the text you pasted. A deck’s speaker notes, a PDF’s image captions and a page’s metadata can carry errors the paste missed.

Logging without owners. A discrepancy log with no names is a list of things everyone knows are wrong. Assign every row.

Letting “Not in source” items disappear. A claim in a live material that the source does not cover is either true and missing from the source, or unsupported. Both need a decision.

Skipping the quiet materials. The email signature, the voicemail, the printed leave-behind. The ones nobody updates are the ones that embarrass you.

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