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WGW Compass

Real-time audit software for town, community and parish councils.

From annual panic to daily confidence. Real-time audit, AGAR compliance, and peer benchmarking for town, community and parish councils.

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Continuous assurance. Measurable improvement.

What if your council’s audit didn’t just happen once a year?

What if your council’s audit was running continuously, flagging risks before they become problems, and giving you confidence every single day that your finances are properly controlled?

And what if you could see, at a glance, exactly how your council measures up against the AGAR internal controls — and how you compare to councils just like yours?

WGW Compass is a real-time audit application built specifically for town, community and parish councils in England and Wales. It brings together financial monitoring and audit evidence to help you assess whether your council’s finances are on track, support your AGAR / Annual Return obligations, and track improvement year on year.

Simple, clear dashboards

Your council, at its very best — every single day.

Illustrative WGW Compass dashboard showing internal control objectives, audit progress, documents and next steps

Illustrative portal preview in English, with example data.

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The challenge

Public money. Small teams. High expectations.

Town, community and parish councils face a unique challenge. You are entrusted with public money — your community’s precept — but you are often small organisations with limited staff, part-time Clerks, and elected members who are volunteers, not professional finance officers.

Yet the expectations are high:

  • Robust internal controls and an annual internal audit
  • The Annual Governance and Accountability Return (AGAR) in England and Annual Return in Wales require you to assert that your internal controls are working effectively
  • The Practitioners’ Guides in England and Wales expect you to demonstrate good governance publicly
  • Internal auditors expect to see proper records and internal controls, working in practice, each year
  • External auditors in England and Wales expect to receive professional and accurate submissions
  • Your community deserves to know their money is being well looked after

The traditional approach — a once-a-year panic when the internal auditor arrives, or worse, when the external auditor finds something that you missed — is stressful, risky, and outdated.

Worse still, most councils have no way of knowing whether their governance and financial controls are genuinely good — or just good enough. Without a benchmark, improvement is guesswork.

The solution

WGW Compass changes everything.

Seamless integration

WGW Compass is designed to connect with supported accounting software, reducing duplicate data entry and helping financial records flow into one audit environment. API connections are being progressed with accounting software providers. Ask us which connections are available for your council and see how your data can be analysed in real time against relevant controls and benchmarks.

Continuous monitoring

Instead of discovering problems months later, WGW Compass flags issues as they arise:

  • Unusual payment patterns
  • Transactions that fall outside your council’s financial regulations
  • Budget variances that need attention
  • Missing documentation or approvals
  • Transactions approaching your financial delegation limits

AGAR/AR internal controls — tracked in real time

The Annual Governance and Accountability Return (England) and Annual Return (Wales) require councils to assert — in writing, publicly — that their internal controls are effective.

WGW Compass monitors your performance against AGAR/AR internal control assertions, continuously, throughout the year:

  • Are your payments properly authorised?
  • Are your bank reconciliations being completed on time?
  • Is your precept income being properly recorded?
  • Are your minutes and approvals properly maintained?
  • Are your year-end figures consistent with your accounting records?

When audit season arrives, you will not be guessing whether your controls are operating efficiently. You will know — because WGW Compass will have been watching all year.

WGW Compass is live. We are in discussions with accounting software providers about connecting their APIs, with permission already confirmed by several providers. Confirm supported accounting connections, including Scribe or Civica, and the availability of individual features when arranging your demonstration.

Peer benchmarking

Know where you stand.

Are we as well controlled as councils like ours?

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WGW Compass automatically matches your council to a peer group of five councils with a similar profile — matched by precept size, geographic area, population, and service delivery. Then, using anonymised and aggregated data, it shows you how your council’s governance performance, financial controls, and AGAR compliance compare to that peer group.

For the first time, you can answer the questions that every Clerk, RFO, and council chair should be asking:

  • Are we as well controlled as councils like ours?
  • Where are we ahead of our peers — and where do we have room to improve?
  • Which AGAR assertions are councils with a similar profile finding most challenging?
  • What does best practice look like for a council our size?

This is not about competition. It is about continuous improvement — the kind of structured, evidence-based improvement that transforms good councils into great ones, giving Clerks and members the professional confidence to know they are doing things right.

Built for your council

You do not need to be an accountant to use WGW Compass.

Sector-specific intelligence

This is not generic accounting software with a coat of paint. WGW Compass is built for town, community and parish councils. It knows:

  • What the Accounts and Audit Regulations require
  • What NALC model standing orders say about financial controls
  • What external auditors typically look for
  • What risks are most common at council level
  • What the AGAR/AR internal control assertions specifically demand

Simple, clear dashboards

This is audit software built for Council Clerks and RFOs. The dashboard shows you at a glance:

  • Your council’s financial health today
  • Your real-time AGAR/AR internal control compliance status
  • Your performance compared to your peer group of five
  • Any items requiring attention or approval
  • Progress against your annual budget
  • Your continuous improvement trajectory over time

Audit-ready documentation

When your internal auditor arrives, everything is ready. WGW Compass maintains a complete, timestamped audit trail of every transaction, every approval, and every exception. Your auditor can see exactly what you saw — and exactly what you did about it. And your AGAR and AR assertions are backed by a full year of documented, real-time evidence — not a last-minute review.

The benefits

Confidence for your people. Progress for your council.

For Clerks and RFOs

  • Less time on manual checks and reconciliations
  • Real-time AGAR compliance visibility throughout the year
  • Reduced stress at audit time — everything is already documented
  • Peer benchmarking to identify improvement opportunities
  • Professional support and validation for what can be an isolating role
  • A clear improvement roadmap based on real data

For councillors

  • Confidence that public money is properly stewarded
  • Clear visibility of financial position without needing to ask
  • Evidence to demonstrate to residents that finances are well managed
  • See how your council compares with similar councils
  • Evidence to support your governance responsibilities
  • The ability to celebrate genuine progress

For the council

  • Reduced risk of fraud and financial irregularity
  • Stronger governance and transparency
  • Support for compliance with Accounts and Audit Regulations
  • Continuous improvement culture embedded in day-to-day operations
  • Reputation protection and community trust
  • A council that gets measurably better every year

How it works

Many councils are good. WGW Compass helps them become great!

  1. Year one: establish your baseline

    See clearly where your controls are strong, where there are gaps, and where you sit relative to your peer group. Prioritise the areas that need attention.

  2. Year two: track your improvement

    See the areas where you have strengthened your controls. Compare your progress against your peer group. Celebrate what is working and focus on what is not.

  3. Year three and beyond: embed improvement

    Embed a culture of continuous improvement. Use WGW Compass data to inform your internal audit programme, your council training, and your governance review. Demonstrate year-on-year progress to your community, your external auditor, and your county association.

WGW Compass does not just tell you where you are. It shows you where you are going — and helps you get there faster.

WGW Compass is available now for councils of all sizes, from the smallest parish council with a single part-time Clerk to larger town councils with multiple staff and complex service delivery.

See WGW Compass working, including your AGAR control dashboard and peer benchmarking, obligation-free.

Don’t wait for the auditor to find the problem. See it first, fix it first, and be the best council you can be — with WGW Compass.

WGW supports councils’ responsibilities and professional audit judgement. It does not replace the requirement for internal or external audit.

WGW Compass for independent auditors

Interested in WGW Compass?

Request a demonstration