How Can Effective Workflow Benefit Your Audit Management Process?

Internal and external audits provide more helpful information about the security of your data, but most employees avoid them. Audits are laborious and time-consuming, Mostly the employees opt to avoid auditing due to their daily workloads. Though audit seems to be daunting, they can be beneficial for keeping track of workflows and staying compliant.
 

Here, in this blog article, let’s see how an effective workflow can improve your audit management process. 
 

Let’s get started!

Stages Of Audit Process

The four steps of an audit program, divided into stages, make up the internal audit process. Every stage needs communication between the auditor, top management, the technology department, and other pertinent stakeholders. The stages of the audit process include:

• Planning
• Document review
• Fieldwork
• Examine
• Reporting
• Monitoring issues

1. Planning

Before developing an audit strategy, the internal auditor must first identify the scope and objectives. The preparation step of audit planning can include involving acquiring paperwork or setting up an initial meeting with your audit team. 

2. Document review

After the planning process, the internal auditor will then go over established controls, policies, and procedures. The primary focus of document review is to verify that your written plans comply with rules and regulations. Role-based access privileges are required if OSHA compliance is required as a security measure. It isn't compliant if you haven't included these in the written program.

3. Fieldwork

To continue with the access rights illustration, your organization must adhere to your written policies. You must properly modify the access rights if an employee switches responsibilities within your company.
In order to ensure proper compliance with standards, rules, and organizational documentation, fieldwork also includes interacting with staff and participating in day-to-day business activities.

4. Examine

Before completing a report, your auditor will frequently discover missing documentation or have more inquiries. It is necessary for the auditor to examine the report before finalizing it. 
After comparing an employee's response to internal policies, if the auditor did not understand the report, he may ask for clarification. Before reporting their findings, most auditors will resolve any misunderstandings. By doing so, they will get a clear vision of the report before submission.

5. Reporting

Next comes the reporting process! Your auditor will release a draft report after reviewing all the information provided and finishing the testing. The results of the audit are included in the draft report. This will contain their impartial assessment of your program's strengths, a thorough list of its faults, and suggestions for a plan of corrective action.

The draft report will be sent to you by the internal auditor so that you can study it and give management time to comment on any findings. Before the auditor issues the final report, you could send extra material at this stage to dispute conclusions. Following all of this back and forth, the auditor finally releases the report.

6. Monitoring issues

If your audit report has findings, you must keep track of them. Put in place the necessary internal controls to address the problem, and demonstrate your corrective action with a written response.
For instance, you would need to demonstrate that you had a plan of action in place to ensure timely and correct evaluations. To ensure that corrective action is still being taken for any flaws discovered in earlier audits, you must also pay close attention to them.
It seems very easy, doesn't it? So why do businesses find it difficult to prioritize audits? There are several causes. The time-consuming aspect of an audit, which causes it to be a resource drain, is foremost among them. Let's investigate that and some approaches.

Final Thoughts

Auditing is one of the potential ways to build a safer workplace. So, as an organization, you will have to carry out auditing to create a  risk-free workplace. Here, in this article, we have listed some of the stages of auditing processes. Make use of the above insights and get to know how auditing can help your business create a safer organization.