File Standards and Audits: What Redrock Checks and Why
What a compliant broker file contains, how Redrock's file reviews and quarterly compliance reviews work, and why the audit regime protects the broker.
New brokers tend to hear the word "audit" and think surveillance. That is the wrong frame. For someone writing their first fifty loans, a file standard is scaffolding — it tells you exactly what a finished file looks like before you have the experience to know it yourself. The brokers who struggle are not the ones who get audited. They are the ones who never had a standard to work to.
Here is what Redrock checks, and why each item is on the list. This is general information about how the review regime works, not legal or compliance advice.
The compliance document checklist
Every file is assessed against a compliance document checklist. It is deliberately mechanical: either the item is on the file or it is not. That removes argument and, more usefully, removes guesswork. Before you submit anything, you can self-check against the same list the reviewer will use.
Fact-find and evidence of reasonable enquiries
The fact-find is not a form to be filled in and forgotten. It is the evidence that you made reasonable enquiries into the client's financial situation, requirements and objectives. A reviewer is looking for two things: that the enquiries were made, and that they were specific to this client. "Wants a home loan" is not a requirement. "Wants to fix half the balance because they intend to reduce hours in eighteen months" is.
Verification
Enquiry and verification are separate obligations. Verification is the evidence behind what the client told you:
| Area | What's verified | Typical evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Income | Amount, stability, source | Payslips, tax returns, employer confirmation, business financials |
| Expenses | Actual living costs, not a benchmark alone | Bank statement analysis, declared expenses reconciled |
| Transactions | Conduct, undisclosed commitments | Bank statement verification or open banking data |
| Credit | Existing liabilities, conduct history | Access seeker credit file from a credit reporting body |
| Security | Value and type of property | Property valuation and market data service |
The specific service providers Redrock gives you access to for each of these are set at the platform level and change from time to time — confirm the current tooling at induction or on 1300 667 694 rather than assuming a particular provider.
The common audit finding is not missing documents. It is documents on file that contradict the assessment and were never addressed in writing.
The preliminary assessment
The written preliminary assessment records why the credit contract is not unsuitable for this client. A reviewer reads it looking for the link between what the client said they needed and what you recommended. If that link is only in your head, the file has a gap.
File notes
File notes are the cheapest insurance in this industry. They cost you two minutes at the time and they are the only record of conversations that are otherwise unrecoverable — why the client rejected the cheaper option, what they said about upcoming changes to their income, what you warned them about.
Under Best Interests Duty you must act in the client's best interests and, where your interests and the client's conflict, give priority to the client's. A file note is often the only place that reasoning exists.
Which obligations apply to which file
This distinction determines what the audit measures your file against.
Best Interests Duty and the responsible lending obligations apply to credit assistance for consumer credit. They do not apply to commercial or business lending. A commercial file is not assessed for a preliminary assessment or a BID rationale, because those obligations do not attach to it.
Commercial and private lending files are still assessed — against Redrock's own file standards, which cover them deliberately. The finding that matters most here is the purpose classification itself: document the test you applied to conclude a loan was business-purpose, not just the conclusion. See how Redrock evidences Best Interests Duty and responsible lending.
The credit proposal disclosure document
The disclosure required under the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 — the Statement of Credit Assistance in Redrock's framework — must be provided, and the file must show when. Reviewers check timing as well as presence.
Record keeping
Files are expected to be complete, retrievable and stored in the systems provided rather than on a personal laptop. The broker portal and compliance platform exist so that there is one version of every document and one place every file lives. Lodgement and CRM run on Salestrekker, a third-party platform Redrock provides access to rather than software Redrock built.
How the review regime actually runs
Redrock operates file reviews and audits against the compliance document checklist, supported by quarterly compliance reviews, compliance registers, ongoing risk monitoring and corrective action management.
- File reviews and audits look at individual files against the checklist.
- Quarterly compliance reviews step back and look at patterns across your files rather than one deal.
- Compliance registers track the things that need to be tracked — complaints, breaches, conflicts, training.
- Risk monitoring watches for the early signals that usually precede a problem.
- Corrective action management is the part that matters most: a finding is not a verdict, it is an item with an owner, an action and a date. It is closed when it is fixed.
Where a finding amounts to a reportable situation, it moves into breach management, and statutory reporting windows apply — as short as 10 business days for the most serious matters. Verify current obligations with ASIC. The full regime is set out in how Redrock supervises and audits broker files.
Redrock has not published how many files are sampled per review or what score triggers escalation. Ask before you sign — call 1300 667 694.
Why this protects you, not just the client
Three reasons, in order of how often they bite.
Memory fails. A complaint or a lender query can arrive years after settlement. The file is your account of what happened. If it is thin, you are relying on recollection against a written record held by someone else.
Habits set early. The standard you keep on file ten becomes the standard you keep on file five hundred. Fixing a bad habit at file ten costs an afternoon. At file five hundred it is a remediation project.
Findings compound quietly. A single missing file note is trivial. The same omission across forty files is a pattern, and patterns are what reviewers and regulators respond to. Quarterly reviews exist to catch patterns while they are still small.
Getting it right from file one
If you are new to the industry, you are not expected to know this instinctively. Tailored mentoring, the induction program and direct support cover file standards explicitly.
Mentoring for new entrants is required under MFAA and FBAA membership standards together with the licensee's supervision obligations — not by statute. Association requirements are updated periodically, so confirm current standards with the MFAA or the FBAA directly. See mentoring at Redrock.
The practical advice from brokers who have been through it: build the file as you go, not at lodgement. Write the note while the conversation is still in your head. Treat the checklist as a pre-flight list rather than a post-mortem.
More on the framework in compliance, licensing and trust, the systems in tools, technology and support, and definitions in the mortgage aggregation glossary.