What does it mean to audit yourself?

What it means to audit yourself is to conduct a personal, systematic self-examination of your finances, tax return, business, or habits to ensure accuracy, compliance, and efficiency before an external auditor does. For tax purposes, self-auditing means reviewing your tax return line by line against supporting documents like W-2s, 1099s, bank statements, receipts, mileage logs, and donation letters to verify income matches third party reports and deductions have proper documentation and legitimate business purpose, checking for math errors and missing forms. For personal finance, self-auditing means reviewing bank and credit card statements, subscriptions, debt, credit reports, insurance coverage, and budget to identify wasteful spending, errors, and gaps in savings or coverage. For business, self-auditing means reviewing internal controls, inventory, payroll, expense approvals, and compliance with regulations to catch fraud, inefficiencies, and policy violations. The goal is to identify and correct errors, strengthen documentation, and improve processes proactively so you are prepared if an official audit occurs and so you operate more effectively, similar to a health checkup that catches problems early.