Running several accessibility audits in parallel is a coordination problem before it is a technical one. The work itself is the same for each asset: scope the pages or screens, conduct the (manual) audit, deliver findings, prioritize, and move into remediation. What changes is how many versions of that workflow you are tracking, who owns each one, and how the reports stay in sync with shifting product timelines. The teams that do this well treat every audit as a project with its own schedule, its own decision-maker, and its own validation checkpoint, while rolling all of it up under a single portfolio view.
| Area | What to Lock Down |
|---|---|
| Inventory | A complete list of digital assets: marketing site, web app, mobile apps, internal tools, third-party integrations. |
| Scope per asset | Page and screen counts, user flows, and authentication requirements documented separately for each audit. |
| Standard | WCAG 2.1 AA or WCAG 2.2 AA applied consistently across the portfolio. |
| Owners | One internal point of contact per audit, plus a portfolio lead who reports up to leadership. |
| Timing | Staggered start dates so remediation and validation do not all land in the same week. |
| Tracking | A single platform or spreadsheet system that rolls up issues across every audit. |
Start With a Full Inventory of Digital Assets
Before you can manage multiple accessibility audits at once, you need a clear picture of everything that needs to be audited. Most organizations underestimate this. The marketing website is obvious. The web app is obvious. The iOS and Android apps, the customer portal, the HR tool, the learning management system, the PDF library, the third-party booking widget: those are the ones that get missed.
List every asset in one place. For each one, note the platform, the primary user, the business owner, and whether the asset is customer-facing or internal. That single document becomes the spine of your audit portfolio.
Define Scope Separately for Each Audit
Scope drives cost, timeline, and accuracy. Every audit in your portfolio needs its own scope document, not a shared one. A content-heavy website is counted in unique page templates and representative content pages. A web app is counted in screens and user flows. A mobile app is counted in screens across iOS and Android.
Audits that share a scope document get muddy fast. When one asset slips, the whole audit slips. Keep them independent so each one can move at its own pace.
Pick One WCAG Standard Across the Portfolio
Decide early whether the portfolio is being audited against WCAG 2.1 AA or WCAG 2.2 AA. Use the same standard for every audit. Mixing standards across assets creates reporting confusion later, especially when leadership asks for a single conformance picture across the company.
WCAG 2.1 AA remains the most common choice for most organizations. WCAG 2.2 AA is becoming more frequent in procurement requests. Either works, but pick one and apply it consistently.
Who Owns Each Audit?
Every audit needs a single internal owner. That person is the one who approves scope, answers auditor questions, routes the report to developers, and signs off on validation. Without a clear owner per audit, communication scatters and deadlines slip.
Above the individual owners, you need a portfolio lead. This is the person who tracks progress across every audit, surfaces cross-cutting issues, and reports to leadership on overall accessibility status. On smaller teams, the portfolio lead and an individual audit owner can be the same person. On larger teams, they should not be.
Stagger the Timelines
Kicking off five audits on the same day feels efficient. It is not. Reports land in the same week, remediation competes for the same developers, and validation rounds pile up. The result is a bottleneck that delays everything.
Stagger start dates by a week or two. This smooths out remediation workload and gives each audit room to move through its own cycle. It also gives you a chance to apply lessons from the first audit to the ones that follow.
Track Every Issue in One System
Once audit reports start arriving, the coordination work shifts. You now have hundreds or thousands of accessibility issues spread across multiple assets, each with its own severity, WCAG criterion, and remediation owner. A spreadsheet can work for a single audit. For a portfolio, it strains quickly.
A platform built for accessibility project management lets you filter by asset, by severity, by criterion, or by assignee. You can see the full portfolio view or drill into one audit at a time.
Prioritize Across, Not Just Within
When you have one audit, prioritization is simple: fix the highest-severity issues first. When you have multiple audits, prioritization becomes a portfolio decision. A critical issue on the checkout flow of your main site probably outranks a moderate issue on an internal tool, even if the internal tool’s audit was delivered first.
Apply a consistent prioritization formula across every audit. User impact and legal risk are the two factors most teams weigh. Revisit priorities monthly as product roadmaps shift.
Plan Validation From the Start
Validation is the round where the auditor reviews the fixes your team made and confirms the issues are resolved. With multiple audits running, validation rounds can collide if you did not plan for them. Build validation dates into each audit’s timeline at kickoff, not after remediation is done.
If every audit is validated at the same time, the auditor is overloaded and your team waits. Staggered validation keeps the cycle moving.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many accessibility audits can one person reasonably manage at once?
One person can typically coordinate three to five active audits if each has a clear internal owner on the asset side. Past that, the coordination load becomes a full-time role, and a portfolio lead is needed.
Should every audit in the portfolio use the same auditor?
Using the same auditor or firm across the portfolio keeps methodology, severity ratings, and report format consistent. That consistency matters when leadership wants a unified view of conformance across assets. Switching auditors mid-portfolio introduces variation that complicates rollup reporting.
What happens if one audit identifies issues that also exist on another asset?
Cross-asset issues are common, especially when assets share a design system or component library. Fix the issue at the component level once, then verify the fix on every asset that uses that component. This is where portfolio-level tracking pays off.
How often should audits be repeated once the initial round is complete?
After the initial audit and remediation cycle, most organizations re-audit annually or after significant product changes. For a portfolio of assets, you can rotate audits so one or two are refreshed each quarter rather than all at once.
Coordinating a portfolio of accessibility audits is less about accessibility expertise and more about project discipline. The teams that do it well treat each audit as its own project, roll them up under one portfolio lead, and keep every issue in a single tracking system from kickoff through validation.
Contact Kris Rivenburgh for help managing a portfolio of accessibility audits.