BRSR Core Assurance — coordinated through BatchWise
Reasonable assurance over the nine BRSR Core attributes — DSC-signed by an ICAI-registered partner CA firm. Coordinated end-to-end by BatchWise. Fixed price, 72 hours.
What is BRSR Core Assurance?
BRSR Core Assurance is the SEBI-mandated reasonable assurance engagement over the nine BRSR Core attributes — the subset of the Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report (BRSR) that the Securities and Exchange Board of India has flagged as material enough to require independent third-party verification.
The nine BRSR Core attributes (per SEBI's July 2023 circular) cover:
- GHG emission intensity (Scope 1 + 2) per rupee of revenue
- Water withdrawal intensity per rupee of revenue
- Waste recycled / reused as a % of total waste generated
- Energy consumption intensity per rupee of revenue
- Spend on employee wellbeing as a % of total revenue
- Gross wages paid to female employees as a % of total wages
- Complaints filed under POSH (Sexual Harassment Act)
- Job creation in smaller towns
- Openness of business — % revenue with related parties
Reasonable assurance, in audit terminology, is the highest level of assurance an external auditor can provide. It must be performed by an ICAI-registered Chartered Accountant under SEBI's stipulated standards (currently SAE 3000 (Revised) for assurance engagements other than audits or reviews of historical financial information).
The output is a DSC-signed assurance report filed alongside the listed entity's annual report, plus an XBRL instance document for stock exchange (BSE / NSE) submission.
How BatchWise coordinates the engagement
BatchWise itself is not a Chartered Accountancy firm. We do not sign assurance reports. Every signed report is issued by an ICAI-registered partner CA firm that BatchWise assigns to your engagement.
What BatchWise does:
- Provides the document workspace, evidence checklist, and structured data extraction so the partner CA firm receives audit-ready inputs on Day 0
- Maintains the published methodology (here) that all partner firms follow for consistency
- Picks the right partner CA firm for your engagement (industry expertise, independence relative to your statutory auditor, current capacity)
- Coordinates the 72-hour SLA across upload → assurance → signing → XBRL packaging
- Hosts your final deliverables and workpaper index in your account dashboard
What the assigned partner CA firm does:
- Performs the assurance procedures over the nine BRSR Core attributes
- Signs the assurance report under the firm's Certificate of Practice and DSC
- Retains workpapers per ICAI documentation requirements (currently seven years)
- Owns the audit opinion and any post-signing regulatory queries
We pick the partner firm; you don't browse a directory. This is intentional — the right partner depends on your industry, your statutory auditor's identity (independence considerations), and partner-firm capacity at the time you engage.
Two engagement structures
Depending on engagement complexity, indemnity needs, and partner-firm preference, BatchWise structures the contract one of two ways:
| Mode | Who you contract with | Who collects the fee | Who signs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lead handoff | Partner CA firm directly | Partner firm (BatchWise refers + coordinates) | Partner firm |
| Subcontracted reseller | BatchWise | BatchWise (settles with partner firm separately) | Partner firm |
In both cases the signed report is issued by an ICAI-registered CA firm under their own DSC. The choice between modes is made before payment and confirmed in your engagement letter — you'll see the exact contracting party before you commit.
Who needs it
You need a BRSR Core Assurance engagement if any of the following apply:
- You are listed on an Indian stock exchange and fall within SEBI's Top 1,000 listed entities by market capitalisation for the relevant financial year.
- You are subject to SEBI's phased BRSR Core assurance schedule (see BRSR Core Deadline 2027 for the year-by-year rollout).
- Your auditor or audit committee has flagged that BRSR Core values in your draft annual report need independent assurance before filing.
Phased applicability:
| Phase | Applicability | First reporting year |
|---|---|---|
| Phase 1 | Top 150 listed entities | FY 2023-24 |
| Phase 2 | Top 250 listed entities | FY 2024-25 |
| Phase 3 | Top 1,000 listed entities | FY 2026-27 |
If you're a Top 1,000 entity outside the Top 250, your first mandatory BRSR Core Assurance is for FY 2026-27 — workpaper preparation should begin no later than Q2 of that financial year. We've published a quarter-by-quarter readiness checklist for Phase 3 entities.
The methodology your engagement follows
BatchWise publishes the methodology that our partner CA firms apply. Every step references published SEBI / MCA / ICAI / GHG-Protocol guidance:
- Tally Ledger to BRSR Mapping — how BRSR-relevant data points are extracted from your existing Tally chart of accounts without re-keying
- NGRBC to BRSR Metric Mapping — how each operational metric ties to the National Guidelines on Responsible Business Conduct principle
- Document Evidence Requirements — the exact list of source artefacts (utility bills, payroll registers, sustainability disclosures) needed to reach reasonable assurance
- CEA Grid Emission Factors (India) — which Central Electricity Authority emission factor is applied for Scope 2 and why
- XBRL Taxonomy for BRSR — how the assured values are packaged into the SEBI-required XBRL instance document
Five-phase engagement flow:
- Onboarding (Day 0). You upload Tally exports, utility bills, payroll registers, and policy documents to your secure workspace. BatchWise confirms completeness against the evidence checklist.
- Mapping & extraction (Day 0–1). Operational data points are mapped to BRSR Core attributes per the published methodology. Items needing entity-specific judgement are flagged for your CFO / sustainability officer to confirm.
- Assurance procedures (Day 1–2). The assigned partner CA firm performs the reasonable-assurance procedures — recalculation, vouching to source documents, analytical review, sample testing — and documents the workpapers.
- Report drafting & internal review (Day 2–3). The partner firm prepares the draft assurance opinion. Materiality threshold and any qualifications are discussed with your team.
- Signatory & XBRL (Day 3). Partner firm reviews the workpapers and signs under DSC. BatchWise generates the matching XBRL instance document for your BSE / NSE filing and packages everything in your dashboard.
End-to-end target: 72 hours from complete document upload to signed PDF + XBRL output.
Deliverables
Every BRSR Core engagement produces:
| Deliverable | Format | Issued by |
|---|---|---|
| Signed Assurance Report | PDF (DSC-signed) | Assigned partner CA firm |
| BRSR Core attribute table | PDF + Excel | BatchWise (workpaper compilation) |
| XBRL Instance Document | XML | BatchWise (compiled), validated by partner firm |
| Workpaper Index | Partner firm (under firm's documentation policy) | |
| Letter of Representation template | DOCX | BatchWise (you sign + send to partner firm) |
| Methodology Note | BatchWise (versioned to engagement date) |
All deliverables are accessible from your dashboard for the lifetime of your account. The partner CA firm separately retains workpapers per ICAI's seven-year requirement.
Pricing
₹75,000 per BRSR Core Assurance engagement (single legal entity, single financial year). Exclusive of GST.
This is the BatchWise coordinated price. It covers:
- All assurance procedures over the nine BRSR Core attributes (executed by the partner firm)
- DSC-signed assurance report and XBRL instance document
- One round of clarifications / re-submissions during the audit
- Final review meeting with the assigned signing CA
- BatchWise dashboard, document workspace, methodology, and coordination
For listed-entity groups with multiple subsidiaries each requiring separate BRSR filings, contact us for a multi-entity quote — bundle scoping is done one-on-one because the right partner-firm assignment varies across subsidiaries.
Turnaround — 72 hours
The 72-hour SLA is measured from the moment your document upload is marked complete, not from the day you sign up.
What "complete" means
Complete = every artefact on the Document Evidence Requirements page is uploaded and parses correctly. Your dashboard flags incomplete uploads with a specific list of what's missing.
When the clock pauses
- During clarification rounds (the partner firm sends a query, the clock pauses until you respond)
- If a material misstatement requires you to re-upload a corrected source document
- If the partner firm flags a scoping issue that requires written sign-off from your CFO
In practice, complete uploads with no clarifications run end-to-end inside 72 hours. The longest engagements have run ~6 working days, all of which involved clarification rounds during the audit.
Your assigned signing CA
Once your documents are complete, BatchWise assigns the engagement to a partner CA firm. The assignment considers:
- Industry expertise — for example, an IT-services BRSR Core engagement is matched to a partner with prior IT-services BRSR or sustainability assurance work
- Independence relative to your statutory auditor — partners are screened to avoid threats to independence under SAE 3000
- Capacity — only firms with confirmed bandwidth for the 72-hour window are considered for any given week
You receive the partner firm's name, signing partner, and contact details before any document work begins. You will have direct access to the signing CA for the duration of the engagement and for any post-signing queries from your statutory auditor or SEBI follow-up.
How a BRSR Core engagement actually starts
- Sign up — Google sign-in or magic-link email.
- Pick BRSR Core Assurance Report from the services list.
- Pay ₹75,000 via Razorpay (UPI / netbanking / card / corporate account).
- BatchWise reviews your scope, assigns a partner CA firm, and confirms the engagement structure (lead handoff vs subcontracted reseller).
- Upload your Tally export, utility bills, payroll register, and policies. The system tells you what's missing.
- The 72-hour clock starts when your upload is marked complete.
If you'd rather talk first, book a free 30-minute consultation — we'll walk through your specific situation (which phase you fall in, what you already have, what you'll need to assemble) before you commit.
Related reading
Frequently asked questions
Does BatchWise sign the assurance report?
No. BatchWise is a coordination platform. Every signed BRSR Core Assurance report is issued by the assigned partner CA firm under their own Certificate of Practice and DSC. BatchWise handles the workspace, methodology, evidence checklist, partner-firm assignment, and XBRL packaging — but the assurance opinion belongs to the partner firm.
Why use BatchWise instead of going directly to a CA firm?
Three reasons. First, fixed published pricing (no scoping-call surprises). Second, a 72-hour SLA enforced by the workflow rather than dependent on the firm’s internal scheduling. Third, the coordination platform pre-structures your data so the partner firm starts on Day 0 with audit-ready inputs — meaning the substantive audit work happens in days not weeks.
Can my statutory auditor also do my BRSR Core Assurance?
Yes, but ICAI’s Standards on Assurance Engagements explicitly require independence and competence for the assurance practitioner. Many statutory auditors do not have a BRSR / ESG specialist team in-house. Engaging an independent BRSR specialist firm via BatchWise avoids that hand-off and removes the independence-threat consideration when the same firm signs both the statutory audit and the BRSR Core opinion.
Is BRSR Core different from the full BRSR?
Yes. The full BRSR is a self-disclosed report covering all nine NGRBC principles. BRSR Core is the SEBI-mandated subset of attributes within the full BRSR that requires independent reasonable assurance. You still file the full BRSR; only the nine Core attributes need third-party assurance.
What if the partner firm’s findings differ from our internal numbers?
Material differences are communicated during the engagement (Phase 4 — Report drafting & internal review). You have the option to re-perform calculations, supply additional documentation, or accept a qualified opinion. Differences are worked with you before the report is finalised; you are not surprised with a qualification at signing.