Strategies that Help You Prepare an Audit- Thus making Way for Efficient Audit

Any upcoming audit can be a matter of great pressure and pain; it’s the most stressful thing that can happen to you especially if you do not have a strategy already set in place. This article is an attempt to identify the critical and often the most overlooked strategies that one should take into consideration when one is faces the reality of an upcoming audit.


Here are the four important strategies for audit planning:

• The Strategy of Close-Out Audit Findings: The first thing that any auditor will look will be your previous audits. These previous audit findings help them to see if you had completed the corrective actions within the decided time frame that was specified by you in the response letter. If by any chance you have ignored this point, then certainly your auditor will get a wrong impression that you do not take the situation of their authority really seriously and this must be the first wrong impression on them. Prepared for the end results??? You’ll be cited again for the same issues but this time with steeper penalties. 

What you’ll need to do under these circumstances is review all your documents related to the previous audits so that you can make sure that everything is in absolute order. This will start things on a healthy note.

• Conduct Risk Audits: Risk assessment should take into close consideration the things or processes are most likely to be audited. This is because there are certain processes that an auditor will definitely look at, regardless if they did so in their previous audit; this is only to determine how well your quality system is operating.
You should also take into consideration your internal audit results for the past one year so as to make sure that compliance and consumer safety issues have been resolved carefully. Always remember that any open issues pose a risk to your company during the time of audit. In case you’ve not been able to deal with these in then you should have a document prepared for the same, this makes you answerable to the auditor.

• Define everybody’s roles and responsibilities in the company: Sometimes you may even get busy making sure that the quality system is compliant and that it is easy to be overlooked defining the roles and the responsibilities that each person will play during audit preparation.  This is exactly when things can be a little chaotic and confusing because it is unclear how each person should participate. To avoid this confusion you should identify who may need to speak directly to an auditor and then you may provide him with the necessary guidance.

• Conduct Some Mock Audits: Conducting mock audits is the best way to determine the readiness of your organization, but this is done only after you’re trained on their roles and responsibilities. Without their prior notice conduct a mock audit and see how quickly these people can execute their assigned responsibilities, including retrieving the records in the most time efficient manner. These results will help you identify and gaps that may exist so that you can make room for improvements.

If you follow all these steps in the most efficient manner, they will assist you in audit preparing- thus enabling you to deliver the best possible results.

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