Internal audit schedules - Where does it say that I need an annual schedule?
J
John C
Ross,
You haven't a case.
Your procedure states that 'you conduct internal audits quarterly'. That's a schedule, and a perfectly good one. But you spoil it by saying you publish schedules in "a timely manor". This indicates that the real schedule is yet to come and here, in March 2000, it hasn't come yet. It's a bit late for publishing information about what is happening in Jan-March, so it's not 'timely'.
Keep it simple, explain why it works for you and, although you can leave it as flexible as you like, be specific as to what flexibility you are allowing and why - don't leave it loose so that the auditors find their reasonable expectations are not being met.
If I was the auditor I'd say that your actions were not complying with your planned arrangements and ding you against 4.17, internal quality audit and 4.2.2 b, not effectively implementing the quality system.
rgds, John C
You haven't a case.
Your procedure states that 'you conduct internal audits quarterly'. That's a schedule, and a perfectly good one. But you spoil it by saying you publish schedules in "a timely manor". This indicates that the real schedule is yet to come and here, in March 2000, it hasn't come yet. It's a bit late for publishing information about what is happening in Jan-March, so it's not 'timely'.
Keep it simple, explain why it works for you and, although you can leave it as flexible as you like, be specific as to what flexibility you are allowing and why - don't leave it loose so that the auditors find their reasonable expectations are not being met.
If I was the auditor I'd say that your actions were not complying with your planned arrangements and ding you against 4.17, internal quality audit and 4.2.2 b, not effectively implementing the quality system.
rgds, John C
J
John C
Ross,
I realise now that I made an assumption that you had no schedule for 2000 for the two facilities. Reading your mail again I see that you might have 'some' of that year's schedule, eg; have the schedule for quarter Jan to March.
If that's so, then I would say you have a good case and we can look at my previous contribution as just an exercise. If you have a schedule up to the end of this month, then, given you announced the basic schedule as being every quarter, then it is totally valid to communicate the actual date for the next quarter as late as the end of this month. You might even want to stretch it well into the quarter before you nail it down, depending on how useful it is to be flexible in your process. 'Timely' depends on the circumstances and the process and it's your call. But, you'll have to convince the auditor so it needs to make sense.
rgds, John C
I realise now that I made an assumption that you had no schedule for 2000 for the two facilities. Reading your mail again I see that you might have 'some' of that year's schedule, eg; have the schedule for quarter Jan to March.
If that's so, then I would say you have a good case and we can look at my previous contribution as just an exercise. If you have a schedule up to the end of this month, then, given you announced the basic schedule as being every quarter, then it is totally valid to communicate the actual date for the next quarter as late as the end of this month. You might even want to stretch it well into the quarter before you nail it down, depending on how useful it is to be flexible in your process. 'Timely' depends on the circumstances and the process and it's your call. But, you'll have to convince the auditor so it needs to make sense.
rgds, John C
