How to Keep Track of Your Audit
Audits are an inevitable, but useful part of the risk management strategy of a business. Potential issues are identified here by assessing the processes of a business against what is actually happening. Traditional methods of auditing may be somewhat effective, but they are neither efficient nor compliance-friendly and are often undermined by how difficult it is to extract information and data from audit reports down the track.
Many businesses are trying to figure out ways to increase the effectiveness of their audits. An entire audit lifecycle consists of numerous tiny tasks that need to be managed efficiently and in order. Quality managers can struggle to keep track of these small tasks throughout the audit cycle, which can lead to losing track of where audits are p to in their cycle, trouble tracking versions of reports, where non-conformances and audit findings are up to in their resolution and what still requires follow up after audit completion.
A cloud-based audit management system can help businesses make their audits efficient and productive with the help of features such as audit tracking and audit schedules. This article discusses more about audit tracking, its importance, and how automation can help businesses with it.
What is audit tracking?
Compliance requirements often include tracking changes to business procedures and audit findings. Audit tracking allows you to thoroughly track small audit details, audit findings, audit status, any changes affecting your business procedures and their outcomes, etc. It helps keep a record of all the activities that are completed to manage an audit and where they are up to at all times.
What are the audit findings?
Audit findings are the observations made by an auditor during an audit. They may include non-conformance issues or suggestions for better practices and are recorded and tracked until completion. These observations can be classified into subtypes, indicating positive findings, areas requiring attention, and suggestions for improvement.
Why is audit tracking important?
Audit tracking is important for ensuring that all audit activities have been correctly undertaken and completed. This benefits businesses by:
- Improve audit plans for the future, knowing what to cover and how often
- Boost audit efficiency and cut costs by targeting audit resources where they are needed
- Developing deeper insights into improvements in the business by tracking audit results
How automation helps
A powerful audit management system incorporates workflows that help businesses with better audit tracking, replacing traditional audit systems included tracking audits using checksheets, spreadsheets and emails, which are cumbersome process. Traditional audit processes also carried risks of errors or omissions, meaning critical processes of the business may not be covered. Automation comes to assist in overcoming these issues, providing a structured solution to this problem.
Compliance audit management software incorporates customisation of the audit type, audit scheduling and tracking all in one place. This allows managers to track each audit activity right from the beginning through to the end of the audit and completion of the audit program. Auditors can also update their teams regarding the audit status throughout the entire audit lifecycle.
These systems help to collate audit findings into trackable action items and enable the assigning of tasks to where action needs to be taken. Auditors and decision-makers can check the status of an audit or specific finding, determine which process of which department is falling behind, whether corrective actions have been taken and whether they are appropriate to correct the issue.
Audit tracking allows for adding more meaning to the auditing process. Businesses must implement a well-structured and cloud-based audit management system to make the whole process effective.
Original Source: https://www.mobiom.com.au/how-to-keep-track-of-your-audit/