Any organization with a compliance & safety management program must regularly conduct audits. These audits ensure that the business operates at maximum efficiency across all departments.
This article gives in-depth information on how manufacturing companies can conduct audits for managing safety and compliance.
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What is an Audit Program?
An “audit program” is a formalized scope, timeline, and activities that auditors will conduct during an audit. An audit program functions as a guide for performing various types of audits at a company.
Why do Audit Programs Matter?
The essential role of an audit is to evaluate the effectiveness of the organization’s internal controls. Audits provide objective insights into operations, identify risks of fraud and misappropriation of assets, and ensure compliance with relevant laws or regulations.
Types of Audit Programs
To run a business responsibly, it is essential to conduct accurate audits throughout your organization. Below are some of the most important methods of conducting several types of audits that organizations can choose from.
- Internal Audit
Internal audits help organizations maintain high levels of quality standards across your organization quickly, efficiently, and accurately by mapping out, seeing, and tracking all areas of the organization. Quality audit app plays a major role in the same. Which automate all the quality audit process for you.
- External Audit
External audits are usually performed by government organizations such as the Internal Revenue Service ( IRS) or other similar agencies. In such types of audits, it is important for auditors to not have any connection to the company. These external auditors follow the generally accepted auditing standards ( GAAS ) and create audit reports which include the audit processes and information obtained.
- Operational Audit
An operational Audit is typically performed internally within an organization, but there are options to exercise an external operational audit. These types of audits evaluate the business operations, such as goal alignment and performance planning procedures. The results of an operational audit provide the opportunity for improvement within the business.
- Compliance Audit
Compliance is a component of everyday business. Organizations such as the IRS or OSHA have standards that need to be regularly checked by business owners, while they also need to make sure they are paying and treating their employees properly. A compliance audit is a reason to check and compare with this set of company-specific standards or external bodies.
- Financial Audit
Financial audits are essential to analyze a company’s financial data. External auditors will evaluate their accuracy and share any issues with lenders, creditors, or investors for identit
- Information Systems Audit
IT-related companies will conduct an IT audit to ensure that the company’s data is protected from cyberattacks and leaks. Businesses can also utilize Information System Audits for efficiency purposes, which includes determining the need for software changes that may eventually lead to cyber-attacks or hiccups.
- Tax Audit
The IRS conducts audits in person or via mail for businesses and determines if there are any discrepancies on the tax return filed by businesses. This information should be accurate because overpaying or misinformation can be a problem with the IRS.
- Payroll Audit
This is a process employees typically implement to update payroll processes and prepare for external audits about compliance. Preparing for an audit can be expensive, but it’s important to conduct annual audits to ensure that your processes are still followed. Paying attention to payroll factors such as pay rates and withholdings is often overlooked until a later, more costly audit.
- Pay Audit
Pay audits to ensure that employers pay employees in line with their rank, qualification, and skill set, regardless of anything else. Race, religion, age, and gender have nothing to do with the quality of work. Pay time accuracy audits also determine fair pay based on business location and industry norms.
How to Prepare an Audit Program
When creating an audit plan, the organization should consider the following factors.
- Support & Access From the Board of Directors
With the power and guidance of the directors, they can carry out accurate assessments, uncovering mismanagement in other areas. Internal auditors canvass their work with the support and approval of the directors.
- Independent Auditors
An expert shares his unbiased and objective tips for assessing business.
- Level of Risk Per Area
Business managers should focus on carefully assessing the risk levels of different business functions during audits, finance, and product development.
- Expertise and Training
Auditors need to be familiar with what they are auditing and up-to-date to do their job effectively. Financial statements, regulatory compliance, and operations are crucial for auditors.
- Technology
With the technological advances in auditing, we can be sure that audits will become more efficient and less error-prone. One advantage of using digital technology is that not only does every auditor receive their audit in one body, but it will also be easier to access every report with one click of a button.
An Effective Audit Program Process
- Establish areas of priority
- Identify auditing requirements
- Schedule a process frequency
- Implement audit process
- Manage audit results
- Report audit results
- Analyze audit reports and new risks
Axonator for Performing Internal and Operational Audits
As an end-to-end audit software, Axonator is a digital tool utilized by auditors and officers to conduct audits of business operations and assess safety compliance.
Axonator is used by organizations across the globe to:
- Streamline entire internal auditing process
- Recognize weak areas, non-compliance, and inaccuracy
- Create complete corrective action plan
- Store audit records at the centralized place
Available on Android, iOS, and the web, Axonator is a highly customizable no-code field workflow automation platform mainly used to transform your paper and spreadsheet-based manual processes and maintain audit programs in numerous industries.
Axonator offers many simple and ready-to-use enterprise-grade apps for field workflows like inspections, audits, safety, asset management, and work orders that organizations can use to replace paper, spreadsheet & cumbersome desktop-based manual processes with mobile & tablet apps.
