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Is the first comma needed in the sentence "To make sure that the audit will go smoothly, and you will avoid future questions from auditors, please ..."?

My thinking is that although we normally put a comma if there are two independent clauses linked with "and", these are not really independent clauses because of the presence of "To make sure". In other words, "you will avoid future questions" links directly to "To make sure".

Therefore, the correct punctuation should be "To make sure that the audit will go smoothly and you will avoid future questions from auditors, please ..."?

Can you confirm if my thinking is correct?

EDIT:

Well, I don't know how to show what effort I've made to find out the answer myself. Most sources, e.g. this one make it clear that we use a comma when two clauses are joined with "and", whereas no comma is needed if the two elements are not full clauses. For example in "He slammed the door and never came back." "never came back" is not a clause as it's missing the subject. Both "the audit will go smoothly" and "you will avoid problems" are complete clauses as they have their subjects (different in each case), yet both of them are part of a dependent clause starting with "To make sure ..."

I was unsuccessful finding any sources that describe the case of independent clauses making up a dependent clause. I don't even know if my terminology is correct here.

That is, in a nutshell, the reason for me asking this question.

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    I agree, but you are supposed to show what efforts you have made to find the answer yourself.
    – Tuffy
    Commented Apr 2, 2018 at 21:28
  • I agree that the first comma needs to be removed. But you would also do well to consider the other points in the answer by rhetorician. The last of the three versions in that answer is a definite improvement over your wording.
    – Andreas Blass
    Commented Sep 1, 2018 at 1:52
  • It is very difficult to set hard and fast rules for punctuation. These are conventions and practice often differ from one country to the next and from one town to the next. Until the arrival of scholarship and the analysis of text that went with it in the Byzantine and Christian middle ages, there was very little in the way of punctuation at all. The principle of the comma is well understood, but leaves grey areas. What I would do is delete "you will" and the comma. Then both verbs depend on the same '<in order> to' and there is no problem.
    – Tuffy
    Commented Apr 23, 2020 at 15:18

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Your placement of the comma in the first version is fine. What is not fine, however, is the wording of the sentence:

To make sure that the audit will go smoothly, and you will avoid future questions from auditors, please . . ..

First, get rid of the that; it's not needed.

Second, make the two parts of the sentence more closely parallel by adding an infinitive to the second part. So,

To make sure the audit will go smoothly, and to avoid future questions from auditors, please [answer the following questions to the best of your ability].

Technically, the first comma is not absolutely necessary, particularly if you shorten the sentence even more, as in the following suggestion:

To make the audit go smoothly and to avoid future questions from auditors, please [answer the following questions to the best of your ability].

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