FCA Compliance Monitoring Plan Template
A free Excel workbook for planning, recording and evidencing your compliance checks
A compliance monitoring plan is the schedule of checks a firm runs on itself to show it is meeting its regulatory obligations. This template turns the structure in our compliance monitoring plan guide into a working spreadsheet: what you check, how often, who owns it, when it was last done, what you found and what you did about it.
What's in the workbook:
- •Monitoring Plan — 14 starter rows for a typical small advice or broking firm, each with a rule reference, the check to run, a suggested frequency and a risk rating. Status works itself out from the next-due date: Overdue, Due in 30 days or Scheduled.
- •Findings Log — One row per issue found: root cause, whether it may be a rule breach, whether it needs considering for an FCA notification, the agreed action, owner, due date and closed date. Open actions past their due date are highlighted.
- •Annual Review — A record of each yearly review of the plan itself: what changed in the business, which rule changes were considered, and who approved it.
- •Rule Reference — The Handbook provisions (and the Money Laundering Regulations 2017) the starter rows point to, with their verified wording and source links.
- •About — How to use the template, why it is structured this way, and its limits.
Rule references last verified against the FCA Handbook and legislation.gov.uk on 7 October 2026.
Who it is for
Compliance officers and principals at small FCA-regulated firms — IFAs, financial planners, mortgage brokers and insurance brokers — who hold compliance oversight themselves or alongside other roles. Keep the rows that match your permissions, delete the ones that do not, and rate each area by the harm it could do to your customers.
Why it is built around evidence
A plan that lists checks but has no record of them happening is not evidence of monitoring. The dates, results and findings sit next to each check, and every finding has an owner, an action and a closed date. Findings that may be rule breaches, notifiable events or conduct rule matters are flagged so they reach your breach register and notification log.
Download the free monitoring plan template
Join the ConductLog waitlist to get the template. You'll also hear when the conduct log opens.
Related guides
FCA Compliance Monitoring Plan: A Guide and Template for Small Firms
What the plan is for, the SYSC basis, and how to keep it risk-based.
FCA Conduct Rule Breach Reporting
Where monitoring findings that are conduct rule breaches go next.
SMCR Compliance for Small Firms: What You Actually Need
The SMCR obligations that sit inside a small firm's monitoring year.
About the compliance monitoring plan template
The FCA's rule at SYSC 6.1.1R requires a firm to "establish, implement and maintain adequate policies and procedures sufficient to ensure compliance". The compliance-function rule in SYSC 6.1.3R describes monitoring that assesses, "on a regular basis", the adequacy and effectiveness of the compliance measures and procedures a firm puts in place under SYSC 6.1.2R. For most other firms, such as mortgage and insurance brokers (SYSC 1 Annex 1, Table A, Column B), SYSC 6.1.3AG makes that guidance to take account of. A firm that is not a common platform firm or management company, and that carries on designated investment business with or for retail clients or professional clients, must also allocate "responsibility for oversight of the firm's compliance" to a director or senior manager under SYSC 6.1.4AR, unless it is a MiFID optional exemption firm (an exempt investment firm under regulation 8 of the MiFI Regulations). For a MiFID optional exemption firm, SYSC 1 Annex 1 Table B applies instead: SYSC 6.1.3R, 6.1.3AG and 6.1.4AR do not apply to it, and SYSC 6.1.3-AR to 6.1.3-CR, which cover compliance monitoring and appointing a compliance officer, apply to it as guidance. This workbook is a practical way to show that oversight is happening.
The starter rows cover financial promotions, suitability, complaints, conflicts of interest, notifications to the FCA, SMCR housekeeping, conduct rule breaches, training and competence, financial crime, Consumer Duty, outsourcing, record keeping and client money. The frequencies are suggestions for a typical small firm, not requirements — your permissions, products and risks decide the plan.
The download link appears after you join the waitlist or choose to download without joining; the file itself is a standard Excel (XLSX) workbook.
Rule references verified on 7 October 2026. This template is general information, not regulatory or legal advice, and it does not describe a ConductLog product feature. Check the current FCA Handbook text for your firm's permissions before relying on any reference.