adminImproving Audit Issue Management
Many companies fail to adequately address audit and examination findings in a timely manner. This failure reflects poorly on management and leadership teams. Below are three ways to easily improve audit issue management.
1. Assign Corrective Action to Specific People
When responsibility is delegated to a specific person for corrective action, the likelihood of completion is much higher. When the task of resolving an audit issue is not specifically designated, it is easy for the item to be overlooked and the audit issues to remain unresolved.
2. Assign a Completion Time
Having a specific timeframe for completion is essential. The person responsible for corrective action should be held to this timeframe and required to provide periodic updates on the status of the audit issue.
3. Regular Reporting on Status of Audit Issues
The status of audit issues should be routine, such as a component of a monthly management meeting. If all audit issues are resolved, that component should still be addressed. By doing so, the fact audits have been conducted and all issues are resolved is not overlooked. When reporting is ad hoc, it is easy for people to procrastinate until there is some sort of regulatory review requiring an update on the audit issues. In the latter case, there may not be time to properly implement corrective action.
The three recommendations for improving audit issue management can be implemented in any type of audit issue tracking method. However, AuditFindings provides a platform for users to easily assign items to others, including timeframes, updating comments, and issue reporting. In addition, AuditFindings provides tools to allow audit managers to receive notifications when items are updated or changes are made.
