For every process your organisation carries out, every management system implemented and every product offered, conducting an internal audit is the best way to measure their effectiveness and compliance.
Audit is the process of examining and verifying the various processes, products, or systems within an organisation or a function to ensure compliance with regulatory standards. However, compliance with ISO standards requires businesses to be up-to-date with the ever-evolving regulatory requirements, streamline business processes and manage tons of documentation.
This can be far more complicated without planned audit processes and technology in place. Fortunately, a robust internal audit management system backed by a software solution can help your organisation conduct effective audits.
What is an Audit Management System?
At its core, an audit management system is a set of processes, procedures and tools designed to streamline the audit process in an organisation to maintain compliance.
It encompasses everything from planning and scheduling audits to managing documentation, identifying issues, tracking corrective actions and ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements. Further, by centralising audit-related activities and data using audit tracking software, a robust system allows organisations to conduct audits systematically, consistently and with maximum transparency.
With an internal audit solution from Effivity, organisations can plan standard-driven audits, control documentation and access an end-to-end audit trail for previous audits to help organisations identify patterns or issues and take the necessary corrective actions to manage compliance with regulatory standards.
Challenges to Effective Audit Management
The traditional approach to audit management, which often involves relying on manual processes and tools, presents several challenges that can lead to inefficiency-
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Manual Data Entry
Relying on spreadsheets and paper-based documentation can lead to errors, inconsistencies and inefficiencies in data entry and management.
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Limited Visibility
Manual processes don’t offer you the level of real-time visibility into audit processes and findings as software does. This makes it difficult for stakeholders to assess the status and impact of audit activities.
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Compliance Risks
Failure to adhere to regulatory requirements and industry standards can result in hefty fines, legal complications and damage to organisational reputation.
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Time and labour intensive
Manual audit processes consume significant time, manpower and resources of the organisation, diverting attention from core business activities.
Why Choose Effivity’s Internal Audit Management Software?
Regular audits are crucial for determining if your QMS, EMS, FSMS, or OHMS systems conform to organisational and international standard requirements and ensure the delivery of quality products to customers. Here’s how using automated internal audit management software can bring efficiency and accuracy to your audit processes-
1. Define and Automate Audit Processes
With Effivity’s audit tracking software module, you can schedule master internal audit plans for various departments and processes and define an audit plan by defining the auditor, auditee, location, date and more for each scheduled audit. Organisations can facilitate seamless audit preparation with centralised audit plans and automated alerts to every stakeholder about impending audits.
Further, by eliminating manual processes and reducing the need for paper-based documentation, internal audit solutions help organisations save time, labour and resources, leading to tangible cost savings in the long run. Automation streamlines audit workflows encourages quick response times and minimises delays, allowing organisations to conduct audits more efficiently.
2. Centralise Documentation
Effivity’s internal audit module functions as a central location for all audit-related information. From audit plans and forms to reports and internal findings, you can find and manage all the documents you need to ensure compliance with a robust document control system .
Besides, such a centralised approach helps ensure that all the stakeholders have quick and equal access to the necessary information, encouraging transparency and communication within the organisation. Not to mention, by capturing key audit data within the system, the software gives you complete visibility into the audit process and results, helping you manage the process better.
3. Maintain Regulatory Compliance
With built-in compliance frameworks, automatic regulatory standard updates and audit trails, Effivity’s audit management software module ensures organisations remain compliant with evolving regulatory requirements and industry standards.
4. Enable Faster Communication and Reporting
Modern audit management systems allow organisations to track and monitor the audit progress in real time. It enables faster reporting capabilities, where people have quick access to audit-related data.
Moreover, decision-makers can effectively generate real-time reports and, get an overview of audit findings, trends and issues on the centralised dashboard and carry out management review. The system can also offer insights into historical data to help analyse audit plans and progress over time. This also makes it easier for teams to collaborate and share tasks and findings for a streamlined internal audit process.
5. Plan Corrective Actions
By identifying and addressing compliance gaps, control deficiencies and operational risks in real time, audit management software helps you identify and mitigate risks that can lead to non-compliance.
Once the non-conformances are identified during the internal audit process, they can easily be analysed and rectified using risk assessment tools. By integrating the internal audit module with Effivity’s Non-conformance module, you can easily identify the root cause, take necessary corrective actions and evaluate the effectiveness of the actions.
The software further sends automated reminders to ensure there are no delays or oversights in compliance management.
6. Bring Standardisation to Processes
Since everyone in the organisation will have equal access and visibility into the audit plans and processes, audit schedules, regulatory standard requirements and documentation, it helps ensure that all the audits conducted within the organisation follow standard processes and methodology.
7. Gain Competitive Advantage
Organisations that rely on audit management software can gain a competitive edge by demonstrating a commitment to best practices, quality management and regulatory compliance, thereby enhancing their reputation and market positioning.
Thanks to an effective audit management system, organisations can go from tedious manual audits and documentation to a streamlined, more optimised internal audit that helps maintain regulatory compliance. Internal audits become more simplified with Effivity – the internal audit module offers you every feature you need to carry out successful company audits, from planning and scheduling to reporting and taking corrective actions.
