Audit & Review
Review a model without permanently changing it. The Audit group is where you log findings, tick-and-tie cells as verified, see those findings colored in the grid, and report on a model’s health — all recorded beside the workbook in companion files. Your findings never edit a cell; the highlight colors are a temporary lens you toggle off.
What it is
The Audit group (the ribbon group is literally labelled “Audit”, internally “Audit & Compliance”) is the reviewer’s toolkit. It holds eight commands arranged in three clusters: a model report, a review-issue tracker, and an audit-status tracker. Two of the commands paint the grid; the rest open trackers, dialogs, or a read-only report.
Three things define how the whole group behaves — and they are the same for every command:
- It records findings, not edits. Flagging an issue or marking a cell verified writes to a companion file, not to the cell — it makes no permanent change to any cell’s value, formula, or formatting. (The two highlight toggles paint temporary fills, stripped before save and on close — see below.)
- State lives in two sidecar files next to the workbook —
.mxreviewfor review issues and.mxauditfor audit marks — that travel with the file and reload when you reopen it. - The two highlight toggles are temporary lenses, not saved colors. They are stripped before the workbook is written and restored when it closes, so highlight colors never end up in the file.
The eight commands
On the ModelXcel Pro tab, the Audit group reads left to right in three clusters (separated by dividers on the ribbon):
| Command | Keytip | What it does | Writes to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Model Health | MH | A read-only workbook health report (formula counts, complexity, errors, proof coverage). | Nothing |
| Review Issues · Flag Cell | RI · FC | A review-issue tracker; Flag Cell logs one issue from the selection in a click. | .mxreview |
| Highlight Issues | HI | Toggle severity-colored fills on cells with open issues. | Temporary live fills — stripped before save/close; not persisted |
| Cell Search | CS | Find cells by attribute (errors, hardcodes, merged, volatile, complexity…). | Nothing |
| Audit Trail · Mark Cell | AT · MC | An audit-status (tick-and-tie) tracker; Mark Cell sets a status from the selection. | .mxaudit (+ Proof ledger on Verified) |
| Highlight Audit | HA | Toggle status-colored fills on cells that carry an audit mark. | Temporary live fills — stripped before save/close; not persisted |
Issues and marks can also arrive from a comparison — see Create issues & marks from Compare.
Review, audit, and proof — three different jobs
ModelXcel Pro has three review-adjacent layers that are easy to confuse. They are distinct, and they store data in three different files:
| Layer | Question it answers | Lives in |
|---|---|---|
| Review Issues | “What did I find that needs follow-up?” — bugs, questions, to-dos pinned to cells. | .mxreview sidecar |
| Audit Trail | “What have I checked, and is it right?” — Verified / Questionable / Erroneous / Needs Attention. | .mxaudit sidecar |
| Proof & Trust | “Where does this number come from, and has anyone vouched for it?” — provenance + signatures. | Proof ledger (workbook custom XML + .mxproof) |
They cross-link where it counts: marking a cell Verified in the Audit Trail also records a reviewer sign-off in the Proof ledger, so audit coverage and proof coverage stay in agreement (see Audit Trail & Mark Cell). And a comparison can spin a moved output straight into a review issue or an audit mark (see Create issues & marks from Compare).
What is written, and where
This is the single most important thing to understand about the Audit group: it is additive and non-destructive. Here is exactly where everything goes.
| Item | Where it lives | Persisted to disk? |
|---|---|---|
| Review issues | .mxreview file beside the workbook | Yes — auto-saved on every change |
| Audit marks | .mxaudit file beside the workbook | Yes — auto-saved on every change |
| Reviewer sign-off (on a Verified mark) | Proof ledger (workbook custom XML part, mirrored to .mxproof) | Yes — with the workbook save |
| Issue / audit highlight colors | Live cell fills; each cell’s original fill held in memory | No — stripped before save, restored on close |
| “Go To Cell” navigation green | One live cell fill; original held in memory | No — restored on next navigation / form close |
| Coverage %, counts, filters, search | Computed in memory each time | No |
| Exports (CSV, worksheet, workbook) | The file or sheet you choose | Only when you trigger an export |
| Your cell values & formulas | Unchanged | n/a — never edited (the only cell paint is the temporary lenses above) |
The findings travel with the file — in a companion file
Because issues and marks live in .mxreview / .mxaudit files beside the workbook (same base name), they reload automatically when you reopen the model — but only if those companion files travel with it. If you email or move just the .xlsx without its companions, the issues and marks won’t follow. To hand a review off, share the sidecars too, or use an Export (CSV / worksheet / workbook) to produce a self-contained snapshot.
One highlight lens at a time
Highlight Issues, Highlight Audit, and the Risk Heatmap are three mutually-exclusive in-grid lenses governed by a single coordinator: only one can be painted at a time. Turning one on while another is active prompts you to confirm the switch; on yes, the previous lens is removed (its original fills restored) before the new one paints. All three are temporary — their colors are neutralized before every save and restored on close, and the save (or close) is cancelled rather than risk baking lens colors into the file. (Contrast this with Comparison highlights, which are persistent fills you revert yourself.)
License
Every command in the Audit group is enabled whenever the license state is Trial, Licensed, or Grace; the buttons are greyed out only when the license is inactive (unlicensed, expired, or invalid). There is no per-feature tier — review and audit are available in full during the trial. See Activation & licensing.
In this section
- Model Health — a read-only health report for the whole workbook.
- Review Issues & Flag Cell — the issue tracker and one-click flagging.
- Highlight Issues — severity-colored overlay for open issues.
- Cell Search — find cells by attribute.
- Audit Trail & Mark Cell — tick-and-tie status tracking and coverage.
- Highlight Audit — status-colored overlay for audit marks.
- Create issues & marks from Compare — turn a moved output into a tracked finding.
Related
- Proof & Trust — provenance, signatures, and verification; the third review layer.
- Risk Heatmap — the third in-grid lens, and the fastest way to triage where to look.
- Compare — find what changed between versions, then flag it here.