active and passive duty

Active duty (eg looking for post balance sheet events before audit report signed) = keeping matters under active review. Looking for evidence that might relate to the audit. So, even as the audit report is about to be signed, reviewing amounts received form customers to see if this adds to information about bad debt provisions if there had been a bit of uncertainty.

Passive duty = just happening to discover something or have something brought to your attention. Eg after the audit report is signed you read in the newspaper that one of your client’s major customers had gone into liquidation.