FREE -  Internal Audit Schedule Examples (Excel)

There are many ways to create an internal audit schedule, whether you do your entire quality system once annually, or break your audits down into quarterly or monthly pieces throughout the year. We provide a few examples you might be able to choose from if you’re struggling to create your own, or don’t like what you have.  This shows the vast variability in types of internal audit schedules.

The most effective internal audit schedules are not blindly duplicated year after year.  There should be some type of analysis of past performance and problems to evaluate risks and needs for increased audit frequency for problem areas.  Management turnover might also dictate the need for more frequent internal audits for that area of the business.

The process approach wants you to avoid auditing clauses of the standards, when it comes to the core business processes.  Auditing the internal audit requirements (clause 9.2) or management review requirements (clause 9.3) can follow traditional checklist and clause-based audits.  When it comes to the core business processes, it is important that you audit each of those processes, which cover many clauses of the standard, and shouldn’t solely focus on just the sub-clause from 8.x. 

If you struggle with the process audit approach and are still doing internal audits to clauses and sub-clauses of the standard using a checklist that just duplicates the standard, you may consider getting greater value from your internal audits and outsourcing to experts trained on the process audit approach.