Nextera Trace

The internal audit platform for planning, execution, findings and follow-up.

Nextera Trace manages the full internal audit cycle in one place — from the audit universe and annual plan through execution, findings, recommendations and follow-up to close.

Who this is for

• Internal audit functions running the annual plan and its engagements
• Audit committees who receive the reporting
• Governance and risk teams who consume audit results

What Nextera Trace covers

An internal audit function has one structural problem: the work is cyclical and long-lived, but the tooling is usually per-engagement. The universe lives in one spreadsheet, the plan in another, the working papers in a shared folder per audit, the findings register in a third place, and follow-up in an email chain. By the time the committee asks “how many high-rated findings are overdue across all engagements?”, someone spends a week assembling the answer.

Trace keeps the cycle in one system:

• The audit universe. The full population of auditable entities and processes that planning draws from — maintained continuously, not rebuilt every year.
• Risk-based planning. Building the annual plan from that universe, prioritised by risk.
• Execution. Scope, fieldwork and working papers for each engagement in one place.
• Findings and recommendations. Recorded, rated, and agreed with management.
• Follow-up. Agreed actions tracked to closure, with status visible in real time rather than reassembled quarterly.
• Reporting. Engagement and committee reporting produced from the same underlying data.

For the professional framework behind that — the IIA standards, independence, risk-based planning, the elements of a finding, assurance mapping — read Internal audit concepts.

What Nextera reports customers achieve

Outcomes Nextera publishes for Trace, as customer results rather than guarantees:

• 1 view of the audit universe
• Real-time follow-up status
• Faster audit reporting

Trace or Guard?

Trace is the third line — internal audit, independent of management. Guard is management running its own controls in the first and second line. If you are testing a control because you own it, that is Guard; if you are testing it because you are independently assuring it, that is Trace.

Where it runs

Nextera Trace is a hosted web application, normally at trace.nextera.id. See Getting access.

Where to go next

• Internal audit concepts — the audit universe, risk-based planning, the five elements of a finding, rating scales, and what independence actually constrains.
• Preparing your first audit cycle in Nextera Trace — the universe, rating scale and methodology decisions to make first.
• Nextera Trace modules — what each module is for.