Glossary›Assurance, audit evidence and working papers›Data lineage / source-to-report traceability
Glossary term
Cluster A · A12
Tier 1 · differentiator
Data lineage / source-to-report traceability
Definition
Data lineage is the technical record of where each piece of emissions data came from, what happened to it, and who changed it. It covers the source system, the extraction, every transformation and the final report cell. Lineage is what makes an audit trail reproducible rather than reconstructed from memory.
No governing instrument
· practice ·
Practice
On this page
In practice
Lineage is the machine-readable half of the audit trail. In a spreadsheet-based process it is carried by formula integrity: a report cell that references a calculation cell that references an imported data cell has lineage; a report cell containing a typed number does not, whatever the note beside it says.
The practical lineage test for a first-time reporter is whether the entire report can be rebuilt from raw source files by re-running the process, without anyone remembering anything. If it can, lineage is intact.
What the assurer does with it
The assurer uses lineage to decide how much testing is needed. Strong lineage means they can test a small number of items and rely on the process for the rest. Weak lineage means every figure has to be supported individually, which multiplies the sample. The rejection trigger is a broken formula chain: hardcoded values in the middle of a calculation, or a paste-special that severed the link to source.
Commonly confused with
Data quality. Lineage is about traceability, not accuracy. Perfectly traceable data can still be wrong; untraceable data cannot be shown to be right.
Sources
1
ASSA 5000 General Requirements for Sustainability Assurance Engagements
AUASB
2
Review status
Review required
Last reviewed
15 September 2026
Editorial pass, unsigned
Reviewer required
Registered company auditor
Next scheduled review
1 July 2027
Part of
Cluster A, Assurance, audit evidence and working papers
47 terms on what an assurance provider tests, what they accept as evidence, and what a preparer has to be able to produce.
Related terms
The end-to-end path lineage makes reproducible
How lineage survives a change to the model
The raw input at the start of every lineage chain
Related questions
Can we use spreadsheets, or will the auditor reject them?
−
Spreadsheets are acceptable and no Australian standard requires software. What gets rejected is an unauditable spreadsheet: hard-coded numbers with no source, broken formula chains, no version control and no record of who changed what. A disciplined spreadsheet passes assurance and an undisciplined system does not.
Do we need to integrate our systems to do this?
+
No. Nothing in AASB S2 or the Australian assurance standards requires system integration. The evidence an assurance practitioner wants already exists in your invoices, meter data, fuel card statements and general ledger, so extracting it once a year is a retrieval task rather than an IT project.
What is the audit trail our auditor expects?
+
An unbroken path from every reported number back to a document you did not create for the report, such as an invoice, a meter reading, a fuel card statement or a signed minute. At each step the trail shows the data used, the factor applied, the calculation, and who reviewed it.
Other terms in this cluster
Data lineage / source-to-report traceability