Top 7 Tips for a successful audit preparation

What exactly is an audit?

Conducting an audit in a company is equivalent to conducting a medical check-up on a person. Through an “exam” or evidence, failures can be detected, improved and company’s information can be gathered to make decisions.

An audit is a process of verification and / or validation of the fulfillment of an activity and the purpose is to identify which activities are carried out as expected, which are not and which need to be improved.

Done correctly, it will make it possible to identify errors, as well as correct them in time, and take the necessary measures to get back on the right track. It will improve the internal management of the company, workers will be more efficient and productivity will increase.

That is why today we will mention 7 tips that you should keep in mind if you want to optimize your audits and inspection process:

1 – Plan

An audit should help to answer and improve the outcome of the most important questions: What should be done? Who should do it? Where and how should it be done? What resources, materials and time do I need?

It is really necessary to design an audit plan, the planning stage is a large percentage of the process, so we have to give it great importance.

2 – Sort the objectives by priority

The most important issues should be prioritized, and for that it is useful to constantly assess risks.

We believe that by creating checklists it is possible to plan and organize the activities in a simple way. Our software, eg. Allows you to assign a name to the checklist, to the sections, subsections, and items that you have created according to your convenience. You can assign them an importance hierarchy, which will help you organize and understand what you should take care of first.

3 – Select the audit Team well

Audit teams and leaders can and should vary according to the complexity of the processes to be audited. Train your team properly and use your resources in an optimized way.

4 – Monitor activities continuously

It is ideal to be able to monitor the process of the audit activities, so that all the members who are in charge of the audit can adjust the approach during the execution of the audit.

The Business Intelligence section within our tool can provide visibility into the information collected in audits and incidents created. All the data collected will be immediately available and will show valuable information that will allow the team to make the right decisions.

5 – Be flexible, review and improve whenever possible

You need to be open to different situations. It is possible that some processes can be modified, from a change of suppliers to the alteration of the members of a team. This may require adjustments in auditing frequencies and progress.

With Full Audits, every time you generate an incident, a unique tracking number will be assigned, so that all team members can check the solution process. In the incident’s history section, all the modifications that were made on the incident with the date of the change and the person responsible are saved. It is also possible to add comments and attach photos or videos.

6 – Communication is essential during the auditing process

Incidents and improvement opportunities must be communicated during the process, not just presented in a meeting or final process.

With Full Audits it is possible to integrate your entire team on the same platform. Synchronize your quality team with the rest of the areas of the company.

Everything that is generated and worked on will be integrated in one place, so the information will be shared in a more efficient way. Our tool is reliable and is synchronized in real time as the team completes its work.

7 – Invest in a management system

As we have seen, all the tips that we have talked about previously can be facilitated with an IT solution for audit management.

A versatile tool such as Full Audits gives you the possibility to optimize audit and control processes in your company.

You can build your own checklists with automated reports, saving time and eliminating the use of paper. You can also create checklists, conduct inspections, and submit reports.

The mobile application in combination with the web platform, provides visibility and information to help raise the safety and quality standards of your organization.

Created by Full Audits Team.