The differences between internal and external audits.
Loading ... Civil Engineers Blog

top page

Latest News

top post page

Home The differences between internal and external audits.

The differences between internal and external audits.

Font size

 

The differences between internal and external audits.

According to ISO 1911(the standard that defines how to perform an audit), an audit is a process aimed to obtain evidence to evaluate the fulfilment of the requirements of the ISO standards.

- What is an internal audit?

An internal audit (also called a first-party audit) is an audit conducted by, or on behalf of, the organization itself.
This basically means that the internal audit is performed by your own employees, or you can hire someone from outside your company to perform the audit on behalf of your company.

- What is an external audit?

The external audit can be divided into second-party audit and third-party audit.
Second-party audits are done by the organizations on their external providers or suppliers.
Third-party audits are carried out by a third party on their own self. It can be a certification or accreditation body or a statutory or regulatory body. 
In ISO word, certification audit is the most common type of external audit done by the certification body.

- the differences between internal and external audits.


1- The result of the internal audit will be used only internally in your company while the results of the external audit will be used externally as well if you pass the certification audit.
For example, if you pass the certification audit, you will get a certificate that will be used publicly.

2- The conduct of the internal audits are in a relaxed friendly style as auditees and auditors should have the same objectives in improving the system while the style of external audits is formal, professional, and impartial at all times. The objectives are to check for compliance to the auditing standard for the agreed scope, the auditees will often view the auditors as an enemy and will not volunteer information to them as they do not want to be the one who lets the side down. 

3- The opening and closing meetings in internal audits are fairly informal while external audits are formally conducted according to a set agenda and procedure at the implementation audit.

No comments
Post a Comment