Punchcard product updates

New Features

• CoAudit reads and analyzes large files directly in your browser: Files that were too large for standard text extraction — where read and search tools previously returned nothing — can now be fully read, searched, and computed over by CoAudit. The analysis runs in your browser against the file's real contents with no extra wait time or server processing. This works in both the web chat and the Excel and Word task panes. If a computation is too intensive for the browser, CoAudit will tell you and prompt you to continue in the web chat where it can handle the load.

Improvements

• Compact, auto-hiding navigation controls in the evidence viewer: Page navigation and zoom controls now appear as floating pill capsules anchored to the bottom of the evidence viewer. They fade out while you scroll or when the viewer is idle, and reappear when you move your pointer or press a key. You can type a page number directly into the page field and press Enter to jump straight there.

Bug Fixes

• Excel add-in no longer silently disappears on Office desktop: A configuration issue was causing the CoAudit add-in to vanish for some users on Office desktop installations. This is now resolved.
• CoAudit icon displays in the correct color: The cyan CoAudit icon now renders and refreshes correctly in the Excel and Word task panes.
• Parallel AI research writes are now properly coordinated: When CoAudit researches multiple topics simultaneously and writes findings to different cells, those writes are now correctly coordinated — no cells are left blank due to a permissions conflict between parallel tasks.
• Worksheet tabs with special characters in their names now work correctly: Cells on sheets whose tab names contain certain special characters are now handled correctly when CoAudit validates or writes to them.

Performance

• More reliable processing of large workpapers: Improvements to how the platform handles large document processing reduce system load during peak usage, making workpaper processing faster and more consistent when many large files are being handled at once.

New

• Pinpoint citation highlighting in Excel: When a source document contains the same figure more than once on a page — a subtotal and a grand total, a positive and a negative, or two rows with matching amounts — CoAudit now highlights the exact line or table row the number was read from. Previously, the viewer could land on a nearby match instead of the precise cell. This applies when reviewing workpaper citations authored through the Excel add-in.

Fixes

• Excel add-in — ribbon buttons no longer freeze after using keyboard shortcuts: Using the Validate, Flag, or Clear keyboard shortcuts earlier in a session could cause the corresponding ribbon buttons to become permanently unresponsive, showing "CoAudit is working on your Validate" with no way to recover short of reopening the workbook. Keyboard shortcuts and ribbon buttons now operate independently.

• Excel add-in — PDF viewer loads reliably: An intermittent "Failed to load document" error that appeared when opening reasoning citations in the add-in viewer is resolved. A "Try again" click always fixed it, but the extra step is no longer needed.

• Citation highlighting respects negative signs and accounting notation: A figure like -120 or (120) could previously rank below 120.00 as a match for a citation of 120, causing the wrong figure to be highlighted. Signs, accounting parentheses, and percent symbols are now treated as part of the value, so each is matched against the correct cell.

• Simultaneous file uploads no longer produce false extraction errors: Uploading several files at the same time occasionally left one file reporting that text extraction had not completed — even though it had — and CoAudit would write incorrect exceptions into the workpaper. This is resolved.

• Partner API "Try it out" works on all regional endpoints: Integration partners using the EU endpoint of the Partner API documentation can now authenticate and test calls directly from the browser. Previously, the OAuth flow silently routed to the wrong region and failed.

Task Numbering

• Requests and tasks renumber independently: When you use the Renumber option in the Display menu, Requests are numbered first (1, 2, 3…) and workpaper tasks follow in their own sequence starting after the last Request. Previously the two types were interleaved into a single numbered list, which could leave client-visible Requests with non-contiguous numbers.
• Renumber is now the only way to change task numbers: The hover-to-edit pencil that previously appeared on individual task number badges has been removed. Use Renumber in the Display menu (list view) to reassign numbers across the board.

Engagement Board

• Inline task numbering (list view, auditors only): hover over a task or request's index number to reveal an edit icon. Type a new number and a preview shows exactly which tasks will shift before you confirm; press Escape to cancel without saving.
• Renumber all (list view, auditors only): a new "Renumber" option in the Display menu reassigns sequential numbers to every task and request in the order they currently appear on screen. A preview dialog shows every change before anything is written.

CoAudit Excel Add-in

• Review any cell, cited or not: Validate and Flag now work on any cell — including cells with no attached evidence — from the ribbon buttons, keyboard shortcuts, or the in-pane verdict controls. Useful for values you've checked by eye and want to sign off on. Clearing a verdict-only cell removes the record entirely with no leftover trace.
• Clear keyboard shortcut: Alt+Shift+C (Windows) / Option+C (Mac) now clears a review verdict from the selected cell or range, completing the Validate/Flag/Clear keyboard shortcut set. Works whether the spreadsheet grid or the task pane has focus.
• Simpler engagement-switch confirmation: re-linking a workbook that has existing citations to a different engagement now shows a single, clearly-labeled button instead of two overlapping options — making the consequences easier to understand before confirming.

Engagement Settings

• External ID: auditors can now set or clear an External ID on any engagement — a unique identifier used to connect the engagement to an external integration. The field saves automatically when you move away; a conflict with an existing ID in your firm shows an inline error.

Fixes

• The Skills introduction callout can now always be closed: the close button, pressing Escape, and clicking outside the panel all dismiss it immediately, even if the network is slow.

Performance

• Notification emails are delivered more consistently. A recurring issue that occasionally caused digest emails to be delayed has been resolved.

New Features

Native keyboard shortcuts for Excel review

• Validate (Alt+Shift+V / Option+V on Mac) and Flag (Alt+Shift+F / Option+F on Mac) are now registered as native keyboard shortcuts in Excel — they work whether the spreadsheet grid or the CoAudit task pane has focus, so you never need to click back into Excel to stamp a verdict
• Shortcuts now apply to your entire selection at once — a single cell, a contiguous range, or a discontiguous Ctrl+click multi-area selection — matching what the ribbon Review buttons do
• On Mac, pressing Option+V or Option+F while the pane is focused no longer produces a system error beep
• The current shortcut assignments are always viewable from Keyboard shortcuts in the chat header ⋯ overflow menu

Arrow key navigation from the task pane

• Plain arrow keys pressed while the CoAudit task pane has keyboard focus now move Excel's active cell — you can navigate the workbook without clicking back into the spreadsheet

Smarter CoAudit write approvals

• When CoAudit writes to cells in multiple passes within a single response, later writes back to those same cells auto-approve — you no longer see a redundant approval prompt for cells CoAudit already wrote earlier in the same turn
• The "N writes only partly landed" notice is now expandable: clicking it reveals exactly which operations didn't complete and why, with color-coded markers distinguishing a value that never reached the cell (amber) from a citation or annotation that missed while the cell value itself wrote correctly (grey)

One-step engagement switch for cited workbooks

• When you try to link a cited workbook to a different engagement, the refusal now includes a Delete citations & reset workbook data button — a two-step confirm that wipes all citations, imported document groups, and the engagement binding in one action, then automatically continues the switch; cell values and formatting are never touched

Lassoed evidence becomes the default citation

• Lassoing or citing new evidence onto an already-cited cell now promotes the incoming citation to the primary (the one that opens when you click the cell) and demotes the prior one to supplementary — previously the original citation stayed primary regardless of what was added; if the cell's value write is blocked (e.g., a protected cell), the prior primary is automatically restored

Improvements

• Discontiguous bulk review: the ribbon's Validate / Flag / Clear buttons and the bulk selection banner now count and act on Ctrl+click multi-area selections — previously only a contiguous block was reviewed
• CoAudit date reading: CoAudit now reads date-formatted cells as proper calendar dates rather than raw serial numbers, preventing phantom discrepancies like revenue cutoff dates appearing a month off
• Clickable filenames in activity feeds: file links in the global Activity Feed and the task activity stream now open the file directly in the viewer for PDF, Excel, Word, and other supported formats — previously these always triggered a download
• Excel add-in responsiveness: moving between cells in the workbook is noticeably faster, especially when navigating quickly through a workpaper

Bug Fixes

• Roll-forward with duplicate data source names: rolling an engagement forward no longer fails when the source engagement contains workpapers that share a data source name — the duplicate is reused automatically rather than aborting the whole operation
• Workpaper Validate/Flag errors: when saving a verdict fails, the error dialog now shows the specific reason and offers a Retry button — previously a dead-end message appeared with no recovery path
• Workpaper grid after refresh errors: if the workpaper grid encounters an error after the initial load, it now shows a clear error state with a Retry option instead of displaying an empty grid with no explanation
• Client page navigation: navigating directly to a client's URL (including sandbox clients) no longer incorrectly shows "We could not find this client"
• PDF viewer blank pages: a PDF page that fails to render now shows an error overlay with a Retry option instead of a blank pane with citation overlays drawn over nothing
• OCR false failures: files that showed as failed during text recognition (but were actually stored successfully) now recover automatically rather than requiring a delete and re-upload

Features

• Higher-capability AI at Max reasoning. For eligible users, selecting the Max effort level in the CoAudit AI model picker now runs on a more powerful model — no extra menu entries or separate option to find. The picker looks the same; the Max rung silently upgrades the engine for those with access.

• Write approval dock in web chat. When the AI pauses to ask for your approval before writing to a workpaper cell, the confirmation now appears as a full-width dock anchored to the message composer in the CoAudit web interface — the same consolidated experience previously available only in the Excel add-in.

Bug Fixes

• Saved model preference holds while the picker loads. A chat conversation saved with a specific AI model no longer briefly switches to a different model (or another chat's preference) while the available options are loading on re-open — it waits for the correct model to resolve and then restores your saved choice.

• Multiple Excel workbooks no longer interfere with each other's sign-in. Opening Punchcard in more than one workbook simultaneously no longer causes the workbooks to share or overwrite each other's sign-in state; each pane signs in and operates independently.

• Save As in Excel preserves add-in context. Saving your workbook under a new filename no longer causes the add-in to lose track of which workbook it is attached to — the connection carries over correctly after the rename.

Bug Fixes

• Command picker displays in the right place in the Excel and Word Add-ins — the slash command menu was appearing at an incorrect position when used inside the add-in panel. It now anchors reliably to the correct spot on screen regardless of the surrounding layout.
• Clearer dismiss behavior for the command picker — pressing Escape now permanently closes the picker until you type / again. Clicking outside or switching focus temporarily hides it; your next keystroke in the same search brings it back automatically, matching how it works on the main web app.
• Slash command suggestion menus close cleanly — menus that appeared after typing / now dismiss properly when no longer needed, and outdated suggestions no longer linger in the composer footer.

What's new

Skill library now available in the Excel add-in

Firm-saved and personal saved prompts are now accessible directly from the CoAudit pane in Excel. Browse your firm's authoring conventions, invoke prompts with @-mentions, or save new ones — without switching to the web app.

Approval controls redesigned for clarity and speed

Several improvements to how CoAudit presents pending actions for your review:

• "Approve all" now settles every pending action in one click. Previously, certain actions (file deletions, moves, patches that merge cells or clear evidence) were excluded and required one-by-one handling. They're now included. What each action will do — "merges cells," "clears evidence," "clears reasoning" — is stated in plain text on each row and in the strip summary so you know exactly what you're authorizing before clicking. All confirm buttons are consistently blue; the nature of the action is communicated in words, not button color.

• Each pending action has its own quick Approve button. Alongside the existing Skip button on each collapsed row, a matching Approve button lets you settle individual actions without expanding the card.

• Clickable cell-reference badges show where CoAudit will write. Each pending write displays cell-reference pills (e.g., "B5:D12 · 18 cells"). Clicking one selects that range in your workbook so you can inspect the target area before approving — nothing changes until you confirm. When any pending write lacks a sheet qualifier, all badges become plain text so a navigation click can't accidentally retarget a waiting write to the wrong sheet.

• Applied-writes summary after each AI turn. Once CoAudit finishes writing, an "Applied N cells in M writes" line appears with clickable badges for each range — a quick way to see and navigate to everything that just landed.

• Approval cards no longer get permanently stuck. On some machines, reading the workbook before showing the Approve/Decline buttons could stall indefinitely, leaving the card unresponsive with no way out. After a short wait, decision buttons now become available regardless, with a clear note describing what approving will do.

Performance

• Citations highlight faster after CoAudit writes. When CoAudit fills in multiple cited cells at once, all citation highlights now resolve together in a single request rather than sequentially. On a heavily cited grid this is the difference between highlights appearing in seconds versus a minute or more.

• Workbook writes complete faster for large batches. CoAudit now groups multiple cell writes, format loads, and container saves into fewer Excel round-trips. Larger workpaper fills — especially those spanning many rows or columns — complete noticeably faster.

Bug fixes

• Numbers now land as numbers. When CoAudit writes a value like "5000," it now correctly becomes a number in Excel — picked up by SUM formulas, sortable, and format-aware — rather than text that formulas skip.
• Dates written to date-formatted columns become proper Excel dates. A date string written to a column already formatted as a date (or declared with a date format) now converts to an Excel date value — sortable and formula-compatible — rather than quote-prefixed text.
• Lasso dates from Excel sources write as proper date values. When you Lasso-select a date from an Excel or CSV source, the captured date now writes to your workbook as an Excel date in your locale's format, rather than as a text string.
• No more false "overwrites existing data" warning for dates. CoAudit was incorrectly flagging a write as destructive when re-sending a date that already matched what was in the cell. Re-sending the same date is now correctly recognized as a no-op.
• Import retry stays available in the Files view. The option to retry a failed document import was disappearing when you were on the Files tab; it now remains accessible.
• Current view is preserved when importing context. Importing a context no longer navigates away from whichever view (Files, Documents, Viewer) you were on.

CoAudit: Approve multiple AI-proposed changes in one step

When CoAudit proposes two or more changes to your spreadsheet — for example, filling in a schedule or populating a set of fields — those changes now appear as a compact, scrollable list instead of stacked individual cards.

• "Approve all" stays pinned in view: A summary strip anchored at the bottom of the list shows how many writes are pending and how many cells are affected ("3 writes · 12 cells · one click covers all"). It stays visible regardless of how many items are in the list — only the rows above it scroll.
• One-click approval for routine writes: Click Approve all to accept every standard value write in a single step. Each item in the list can also be expanded individually to review the before-and-after detail and approved or skipped on its own.
• Before-and-after always visible on expand: Opening a collapsed change row now reliably shows what the cell currently contains and what CoAudit will write — this preview was hidden in certain cases before.
• Bulk approval waits for full disclosure: The Approve all button only becomes active once every change that touches an existing cell value has fully loaded its before-and-after preview. You can only bulk-approve changes you have actually been shown.
• Changes that can't be undone stay separate: Any action that permanently removes data — such as clearing audit notes or evidence — is excluded from Approve all and appears as its own item labeled "needs review," requiring an individual decision.
• Clearer button style: The button to approve a routine data overwrite is now blue, consistent with standard confirm actions. Red is reserved for changes that permanently delete or clear content.

Excel workbook chat reliability

• First message in a new workbook chat now behaves correctly: Sending your first message right after opening a workbook chat could previously result in each approval appearing one at a time with pauses in between, instead of all together. This is now resolved.

Bug Fixes

• Workpaper data source card actions restored: The three-dot menu on data source cards — used to rename or delete a source — was not opening when clicked. This is now fixed; Rename and Delete work as expected again.
• Chat rename shows a clear error when it fails: Renaming a conversation via the three-dot menu now displays an error message if the title couldn't be saved, so you know to try again rather than assuming the change was applied when it wasn't.

Bug Fixes

• Date variables can now be created without losing the form. In Engagement Settings, when adding a new variable with the Date type, opening the calendar to select a value previously dismissed the entire form — making it impossible to save a date variable. The form now stays open while you pick a date and choose a format, so you can complete and save the variable without starting over.

New Features

• Document search now works in Excel and Word files — a search button in the viewer header opens the same tiered search panel for Excel spreadsheets, CSV files, and Word documents that was previously available only for PDFs. Exact text matches surface with neighboring cell context (for spreadsheets) or surrounding lines (for PDFs), and semantically related results appear in a "Related by Topic" section below. Scope your search to the open file, its document group, all files in the task, or your full engagement library.

• "Cite" draw mode — a new Cite option in the draw mode menu lets you annotate which part of a document supports a cell value without overwriting the value itself. Lasso remains available when you want to extract text directly into the cell.

• My Engagements header stays pinned while scrolling — on the home page, the "My Engagements" title and filter chips now pin to the top of the screen as you scroll through your engagement list, so your selected filters and engagement count stay visible at all times.

• Navigate to any document directly from the viewer — the filename at the top of the document viewer now opens a full list of every document group in the task, letting you jump to any file without returning to the file explorer.

Improvements

• Excel files render with full formatting — Excel (.xlsx) files now display frozen panes, merged cells, conditional formatting, charts, and images as they appear in the original spreadsheet. Files up to 100 MB are supported. CSV files use a dedicated grid viewer.

• Zoom controls and sheet tabs in Excel and CSV viewers — zoom in/out and sheet navigation (for multi-sheet workbooks) are now available directly in all spreadsheet viewers, consistent with the PDF viewer.

• "Lasso" replaces "By Individual Cell" in the draw mode menu — the draw mode previously labeled "By Individual Cell" is now called "Lasso," matching the terminology in the Excel add-in.

Bug Fixes

• European-format dates display and export correctly — dates written in day-first format (e.g., "10.07.2023" meaning 10 July) now appear and export correctly when your firm is configured for DD.MM.YYYY. Previously, ambiguous dates with a day value of 12 or under could show the day and month transposed, both on screen and in exported files.

• Clicking cell references in the Excel add-in no longer jumps the spreadsheet's selection — in the Excel add-in, clicking an inline cell reference in the reasoning panel now marks that reference as "Viewing" and shows an explicit "Open →" button for navigation, rather than silently moving Excel's active cell.

• Drawing over very large areas now shows a prompt instead of freezing — selecting an oversized region with Lasso, Cite, or Sum now shows a message asking you to draw a smaller range, instead of causing the viewer to become unresponsive.

• Draw modes no longer accidentally capture unintended regions — Lasso, Cite, and Sum no longer commit evidence when clicking column headers, chart areas, or viewer controls; only intentional cell selections are captured.

Workpaper — MATCH Column Improvements

• Edit MATCH cells directly: Double-clicking a classic MATCH cell now opens an inline editor so you can type a correction when the matched value was misread or left blank.
• Lasso corrects MATCH values: Drawing a selection box over the correct text in a document now replaces a MATCH cell's value with the selected text — the same way it works for other column types. Useful when a matched source value was misread and you want to point at the right region.
• Format control for MATCH and Table columns: The display format selector (number, currency, date, plain text) is now available on classic MATCH columns and Table columns, so you can fix how values are displayed without re-running extraction.
• Pasted integer columns display without forced decimals: When you paste a column whose values are all whole numbers (invoice IDs, reference codes), it now defaults to plain number display instead of showing unnecessary decimal places.

Files — OCR Visibility and Control

• Extraction method badge on the Text tab: Each file in the Text tab now shows a small labeled badge indicating how its text was extracted — Text (fast recognition), OCR (thorough optical recognition), or Native (built-in document or spreadsheet text). Hover the badge for a description. Helps you spot files that may need a thorough re-run when text coverage is poor.
• Choose fast or thorough when re-running OCR: The re-run option in the file menu is now a two-choice submenu — Text Recognition (fast) uses the default extraction path; Optical Character Recognition (thorough) forces a deeper scan for PDFs, images, and Word documents. The thorough option only appears for file types it actually supports, so it can no longer be applied to spreadsheets or plain-text files where it would erase existing good text.

Bug Fixes

• European decimal amounts now parse and sum correctly: Values like "768,15 EUR" (comma as decimal separator) were being misread as a thousands-grouped number and corrupting column totals. These amounts now display and sum correctly regardless of the format tag on the column.
• Format changes reliably revert when a save fails: If a column format change could not be saved, the displayed format now reverts to the last confirmed value rather than getting stuck on an incorrect intermediate state.
• Financial Statement Review: Math items you confirm as passing now correctly leave the Needs Review queue instead of remaining listed.

Engagement Exports

• Export ZIP folder structure now mirrors your board's row grouping. When you download engagement files as a .zip, the folder layout matches however your board is currently grouped — by category, assignee, priority, or status. If your board is grouped by assignee, the zip arrives with one folder per assignee; switch to category and you get category folders instead. Requests with no value for the active grouping (unassigned, no category, etc.) go to the zip root. If the board is set to no grouping at all, all requests land at the root with no subfolders. Both the auditor "Files + Workpapers" export and the client "Files" export follow the same rule.

Financial Statement Review

• Back-to-review shortcut in the Files browser. Opening the Files browser while a document is already under active review no longer leaves you stranded. A back-arrow button now appears in the browser header; clicking it returns you immediately to the document you were reviewing without having to navigate through folders and re-select it. The button disappears automatically if the file under review is deleted.

Notifications

• Auditor activity digests now show only client-initiated activity. Auditor digest emails now include only what clients have done — status changes, file uploads, and comments by client users. Activity between auditors is no longer included, keeping the digest focused and actionable. Client digests are unchanged.

CoAudit Add-in (Excel & Word)

• Faster, smoother sign-in. After completing sign-in, the add-in moves directly into the review surface with no white gap or unresponsive button in between. For brand-new accounts where your access role is still being granted, the add-in now self-heals within a couple of seconds rather than showing a "Checking sign-in…" screen for up to a minute.
• Improved sign-out on desktop. Signing out from the ribbon now shows a branded "You've been signed out" confirmation inside the add-in before returning to the sign-in screen. The session is properly closed on both Mac and Windows — identical behavior to signing out on the web.
• Word add-in loading screen. The Word add-in now displays the same branded loading experience as the Excel add-in while a document is loading, replacing a blank or partially-rendered state during slow opens.

Evidence viewer — image files

• Photos and screenshots open at a readable size — image files now display at a comfortable width in the evidence viewer, matching how PDF documents look. Previously, a high-resolution phone photo could render far too large to read, while a small screenshot could appear too small.
• Portrait photos display upright — photos taken in portrait orientation now appear correctly in the viewer instead of landing on their side.
• Citation highlights and lasso boxes land on the right region — when you draw a lasso or CoAudit places a citation on an image file, the highlighted area now aligns with the actual content. Previously, highlights on image files were positioned far outside the visible page.
• In-document search highlights work on image files — when CoAudit searches within an image, matching regions are now highlighted in the correct location.
• TIFF files show a clear explanation — opening a TIFF file in the evidence viewer now displays a message explaining that this file type cannot be previewed inline, with a prompt to download the file instead of showing an error.

Excel and Word add-in

• Workbook references display a link chip — when CoAudit's reasoning includes a reference to a cell or range in the workbook, it now shows a small "↗" chip next to the linked value, making it clear the reference is a live workbook link rather than plain text.
• Hovering a workbook citation card moves Excel's selection — moving your pointer over a workbook citation in the cell detail panel temporarily highlights the referenced cell or range in the spreadsheet, making it easy to see where the citation points. When you move the pointer away, the selection returns to where it was.
• Hovering a citation does not dismiss active error messages — briefly moving the pointer over a workbook citation no longer clears an error message that was already visible in the panel.
• Citation ledger stays accurate after CoAudit updates reasoning — when CoAudit rewrites a cell's reasoning, the citation list in the detail panel now reflects only the references in the updated text. Removed references are cleaned up automatically; the panel no longer accumulates outdated entries over time.
• New users no longer get stuck after signing in — auditors signing in to the Excel or Word add-in for the very first time no longer encounter a "sign out and back in to finish" screen. The add-in now waits silently for your account to be fully recognized and proceeds automatically.

Workpaper sampling

• Monetary Unit Sampling shows guidance when no numeric columns exist — if you choose Monetary Unit Sampling for a population that contains only text columns, the Amount Column selector now shows a clear message explaining what is needed and how to proceed, instead of displaying a blank dropdown with no options.