When sampling notes fall apart under cold review
“We selected 25 items” is not a sampling note. It is a headline without a story. Cold reviewers ask what population you started from, what you excluded, how you ordered the list, and what you did when an item lacked supporting documents.
Gaps we see repeatedly
- Population defined as “all invoices” with no system report ID or row count.
- Strata mentioned in planning but not carried into the selection worksheet.
- Replacements logged as new selections without saying why the original failed.
- Exceptions summarized verbally in the conclusion but not listed with item IDs.
Clinic checklist (abridged)
- Can a stranger rebuild the population from the cited report?
- Are exclusions named with reasons, not just deleted rows?
- Is the selection method stated in one sentence a junior could apply?
- Do exceptions point to evidence packs, not only to a narrative?
Sampling Logic Lab inside Evidence File Craft walks through full worksheets. If your firm already mandates a form, we stress-test whether that form still answers these four questions under fatigue.