Preparing for a BACB Fieldwork Audit

The Behavior Analyst Certification Board (BACB) conducts routine audits of fieldwork hours. These audits can be initiated randomly, for quality assurance, or due to an ethics matter. If audited, the burden of proof falls entirely on you and your supervisor.

The 14-Day Response Window

If you are selected for an audit, you generally have only 14 days to provide all requested documentation. Scrambling to reconstruct your log or chase down old supervisors during this window is highly stressful and often results in lost hours.

Required Documents

To successfully pass an audit, you must produce several pieces of documentation. Missing any of these can lead to the disqualification of your hours:

• Monthly Fieldwork Verification Forms (M-FVFs): Fully signed and dated by the deadline for every audited month.
• Final Fieldwork Verification Form (F-FVF): If the audited hours are part of a completed fieldwork segment.
• Supervision Contract: The signed agreement establishing the supervisory relationship.
• The Documentation System: Your detailed session-by-session log (e.g., your Excel export or our app's dataset) showing start/end times, activity types, setting names, and supervision summaries.
• Audit Log: A specific log detailing any corrections or adjustments made to your hours.

Consequences of Noncompliance

If the BACB determines your hours are noncompliant (for example, if you missed the required client observation in a month or your supervision percentage was too low), those hours are disqualified. You must remove them from your total and accrue replacement hours.

Furthermore, if the BACB discovers that a supervisor signed off on noncompliant hours or failed to provide supervision according to the rules, a Notice of Alleged Violation (NAV) may be filed against the supervisor's certification.