Internal Auditing

Key features

The internal audit process needs to be planned and executed in a structured way in order to get the best results. Whether you are looking for internal audits to be completed all at once prior to an audit, or to spread them across the year, we are here to help. The internal audit process involves:

• An audit programme – it is important to determine what processes are to be audited, when the audit will occur and who needs to be present. The auditee should be informed in advance and be given an idea of how the audit will be conducted. The best audits are built on mutual trust and collaboration
• Defining the audit criteria – to ensure each audit meets its objectives and the requirements of the ISO standards, it is important to define what you will be auditing. What are we auditing against? What are the key parts of the process that should be occurring? What should evidence should we be looking for during the internal audit?
• Conducting the audit – when conducting the audit we need to check that what is occurring in reality meets the process and business requirements that have been defined.
• Summarising findings – objective evidence, quotes from auditees and general observations will be documented. Findings will be summarised so they can be presented to give simple oversights
• Defining ‘corrective actions’ – where processes aren’t occurring as planned, it is important to understand why. Defining the true root cause allows the business to put in place corrective actions which should help prevent the issue arising again.
• Generation of an audit report – production of a report or a log of findings to document the actions that need to be taken. This will provide a permanent reference resource to ensure corrective actions can be closed out in the time frame defined