Preparing for an SCN audit: what reviewers actually ask for

An audit notice shouldn't change anyone's week. Whether it's your Lead Entity, the SCN, or a payer review, food-service audits ask a version of the same question for a sample of claims: prove this happened the way you billed it.

The five documents per claim

For each sampled claim, be ready to produce:

1. The authorization — reference, service type, cap, and dates, showing the member was eligible for this service in this period.
2. The order — what was requested for the member, priced.
3. The invoice — goods actually charged for the delivery.
4. Delivery evidence — a dated proof the food reached the member: photo at the door, signature, or delivery record.
5. The claim math — goods, uplift, cap: numbers that reconcile to the worksheet you submitted.

A reviewer who gets all five in one packet, numbers reconciling, tends to move on quickly. The trouble starts when the invoice lives in email, the proof lives on a driver's phone, and the math lives in a spreadsheet with a typo.

Practice: the one-claim fire drill

Pick a random claim from last month and time how long it takes to assemble the full packet. That number is your audit posture:

• Under five minutes — you're running a system. You'll be fine.
• An afternoon — you're running a scavenger hunt. Fix the filing before the notice arrives, not after.

Build the packet at delivery time, not audit time

The reliable trick is to make evidence a *by-product of the work*: the delivery isn't complete until proof is attached; the proof is stored with the order; the order carries its authorization; the claim snapshots which orders produced its number. Then "prepare for the audit" means "click download."

In HiveMarket every claim has a one-click audit bundle: a single PDF with the claim math, the invoice, the delivery photo, and the authorization reference. The Billing screen also shows an Audit-Readiness Score — the percentage of delivered orders with every document on file — so you know your posture before anyone asks. See the billing area.