Audit management software helps companies streamline their audit processes and comply with regulations or internal policies. Audits are conducted to assess an organization’s operations, compliance with internal policies, or compliance with specific regulatory standards and frameworks.
Audit management software is used to define, implement, and monitor auditing procedures for multiple purposes, including internal audits. Ideally, such tools should also be able to plan, conduct, and report on the results of standard or customizable audits.
Audit management software can be used by many different stakeholders. Audits typically involve input and collaboration with individuals across the organization, including internal auditors, compliance officers, risk managers, security teams, safety managers, and financial teams. They can also be conducted by external auditors.
Audit management software should clearly define the roles and expectations for those involved in the audit and manage the process through to completion. These tools can be used in any industry but are most common in highly regulated industries such as finance, healthcare, and manufacturing. They are also highly used in businesses that involve protected information and are held to specific regulatory requirements such as SOX, ISO 27001, ISO 14001, and ISO 45001. Many products support internal audit frameworks such as ISO 9001 and regulations built from ISO 9001.
Although similar, audit management software is distinct from financial audit software which serves a specific purpose and follows a different process than most other audits. Audit management software also overlaps with security compliance software, but the latter may not support collaborative audit and remediation actions across departments. Those products also may be limited in their capabilities to support and manage custom audits.
Audit management is also different from inspection management software and quality management software (QMS) because while those products audit sites and processes for compliance, they typically do not support audits to demonstrate compliance with specific regulations such as ISO 13485, 21 CFR Part 820, AS9100, and IATF 16949.
To qualify for inclusion in the Audit Management category, a product must:
- Plan and execute internal audits and audits that align with specific regulations and frameworks
- Capture complete information on who audits what, and when
- Align and collaborate with different internal and external stakeholders within a single platform
- Monitor auditing processes and recommend corrective actions
- Report audit outcomes for internal or external audiences
