This happened last Friday, and I am sure was an isolated incident.
At 11:45 am an FDA Inspector approached our receptionist and stated that he was here to "Inspect your facillity." Our receptionist did what she was supposed to do and notified our management representative, who is our general manager. He requested from the FDA Inspector to see his credentials, which he was shown. Then he asked the inspector why we were not notified previously of the inspection. He was told that the reason why he was there was not for a facillity inspection, but to verify our registration which hadn't been paid.
Our GM said, "I believe that I did that in October." The inspector replied that his manager's database stated that we were not registered. The GM said, "Let's go in my office and look on the FURLS website." Which they did and he showed the inspector that the company was registered and that the fees had been paid on October 2, 2012.
The GM then asked, "Would you like a copy of this?" To which the inspector said, "No, that won't be necessary. I just don't understand why my manager's database is so far out of date."
The GM replied, "Well, maybe you should write yourself a 'nonconformance' then." To which the inspector said nothing but excused himself from our building.
The GM told me in the afternoon, that if and when we are inspected again, (we were inspected four years ago) that if we receive any observations on a 483 that it will probably be because of his flippant remark.
I know that this was probably something that you were not really wanting, but I thought that you would want to know that the FDA is not infalable.
I would say that the best way to prepare for an FDA Inspection is to read and become familiar with the QSIT manual.