Frequently Asked Questions

NORVA’s Toolkit is an Excel-native compliance assessment and reporting system designed to help organisations and firms complete structured, defensible compliance reviews more efficiently.

It combines an embedded runtime engine, smart compliance assessment templates, policy content, and presentation-ready reporting outputs in a familiar Microsoft Excel environment. It is designed to support work ranging from rapid gap analysis through to full risk and control matrix (RCM) assessments.

NORVA’s Toolkit is designed for in-house compliance teams, accounting firms, advisory firms, consultants, and organisations that need a more structured way to assess and report on compliance.
It is especially useful for teams that want to reduce manual effort, improve consistency, and produce more defensible outputs without adopting a complex new platform

NORVA’s Toolkit helps users get compliance work done using a platform they already know, while still producing outputs that are structured, evidence-backed, and ready for management or stakeholder review.

• Excel-native usability

   

• Guided workflows rather than static spreadsheets

   

• Templates derived from authoritative source materials

   

• Hyperlinked source guidance inside the templates

   

• Automated reporting outputs

   

• The flexibility to work at different levels of assessment depth

Yes. Where relevant, NORVA’s Compliance Assessment Toolkit can be described as helping users produce output that can be linked back to authoritative source materials, supporting greater clarity, defensibility, and inspection readiness.

No. They are not static spreadsheets.

NORVA’s smart Compliance Assessment Templates are powered by an embedded runtime engine and designed to guide users through structured assessment workflows. Depending on the work mode selected, the same template can support a self-assessment, a deeper review, or a fuller risk and control matrix approach.

Being Excel-native helps make Norva’s Compliance Assessment Toolkit familiar, practical, and easy to adopt. Users can work in an environment they already know, while benefiting from programmed functionality and a more structured assessment process.

Norva’s Toolkit is designed as a complete Excel-native working system.

• An embedded runtime engine
• Smart compliance assessment templates
• Policy content
• An evidence-focused working structure
• Presentation-ready reporting outputs

A Norva subscription gives you access to the full library of smart Compliance Assessment Templates, not just a single template or subject area.

Subscribers can download and use 100+ Templates in the growing library. This gives subscribers broad coverage and the flexibility to use the toolkit across multiple mandates without building separate assessment templates from scratch.

Norva’s template library covers financial, operational, governance, control, and regulatory compliance subject areas.

The library is designed to support different mandates, industries, and assessment objectives. Each template is pre-populated, fully editable, and linked to authoritative source material so users can start from a stronger base.

Yes. Norva is designed to give users more than an assessment worksheet alone.

Each Template includes a fully developed and editable policy to help support stakeholder and regulatory expectations.

Users start in Excel using a pre-structured compliance assessment template and choose the level of review that fits the job at hand.

From there, they can work from a rapid gap analysis, to a deeper diagnostic review, to a fuller risk and control matrix (MCM) assessment. As assessment data is entered, the toolkit supports more consistent documentation and reporting output, helping users move from review work to management-ready reporting more efficiently.

Norva supports three work modes so users can match the depth of work to the task.

Control Scan – a fast gap analysis to identify what is in place, what is missing, and where follow-up may be needed
Diagnostic Review – a more structured review and risk assessment
RCM Assessment – a fuller matrix-based assessment for more comprehensive documentation and reporting

Norva is designed to reduce manual reporting effort by generating structured outputs as assessment data is entered.

• Risk Registers
• Heatmaps
• Dashboards
• Status Summaries
• Gap Summaries

Yes. Norva’s templates are designed to be fully editable.
Users can tailor them to their organisation, mandate, and working style while still benefiting from the pre-built structure and source-linked content.

Norva helps firms deliver compliance-related work more consistently, more efficiently, and with less reinvention from one engagement to the next.

• Repeatable delivery across multiple clients

   

• Faster onboarding of new compliance mandates

   

• More consistent workpapers and outputs

   

• Clearer evidence trails

   

• Additional value-added service opportunities

 

Yes. This is one of the clearest use cases for Norva’s Toolkit.

The Toolkit is designed to help firms avoid rebuilding assessment structures from scratch for every client engagement. Instead, firms can start from a ready-to-use template base and adapt it to the client, subject matter, and scope of work.

Norva can support firms delivering assessments across a broad range of subject areas using one structured toolkit approach, including;

• Internal Control over Financial Reporting

   

• Cyber Security

   

• Privacy and Data Protection

   

• Corporate Compliance

   

• Anti-Bribery and Corruption

   

• Anti-Money Laundering and Sanctions

   

• Growth, Profitability, and Business Development

Norva’s smart Compliance Assessment Templates are derived from authoritative source materials, with the underlying guidance hyperlinked directly into the templates.
That helps users see the basis for the content, work more confidently, and reduce the time spent manually researching and structuring assessment criteria from scratch.

Norva is designed to support a broad range of organisations and use cases. The templates have global and universal applicability.

Norva was built by practitioners with experience in compliance, governance, policy, and software-driven delivery.

About Us

Norva’s Compliance Toolkit is designed for fast adoption.
The templates are downloadable and built in Excel, so users can begin working in a familiar environment without having to learn an entirely new platform first.

Norva’s Toolkit is designed to be easy to use and quick to learn, especially for teams already comfortable working in Excel.
The aim is to reduce setup time and minimise the learning curve while still giving users a more structured way to perform and report on compliance work.

Norva’s software is available as an on-premise tool and can also be configured by subscriber organisations to work on their network or in the cloud

Users can create their own fully functional smart Templates from existing compliance documentation using the development template.

NORVA’s Toolkit is licensed per user, per year. Your subscription fee applies solely to licensed access to the Compliance Assessment Engine.
The Engine authenticates the user, decrypts, and enables the programmed functionality of the smart Compliance Assessment Templates. Through that licensed access, users may use the full Norva Compliance Assessment Toolkit, including smart Compliance Assessment Templates and Policy Statements. These Templates and Policy Statements are included as bundled, complimentary added-value components of the Toolkit and are not separately priced or licensed.

Yes. All newly added templates and policies are included in your subscription.

Yes.  Accounting, advisory and consulting subscribers can use Norva’s Toolkit for both internal assessments and client-facing engagements.

Yes—Risk Registers, Heatmaps, Dashboards, Pie Charts, Status, and Gap Summaries automatically populate as ssessment data is entered into an assessment and provides a rich and immediate one-click management reporting environment.

No— The Assessment Runtime Engine does not appear as a separate application.
It runs inside Microsoft Excel and activates your licensed Assessment when a Playbook is opened.

Yes — the Toolkit can be placed on a network so it can be accessed across a team. However, each individual Assessment template is designed to be owned and worked on by one user at a time, rather than edited simultaneously by multiple users.

Where wider input or review is needed, the template owner can export the current content to an Excel file for review and comment by others, including boards, auditors, and regulators. This supports controlled collaboration while helping protect the integrity of the definitive Assessment from unauthorised changes.