Anyone can be an ISO auditor they can be internal auditor as well as
external auditor,
Internal audits are conducted by employees who have been trained
how to audit and they conduct audits within the company on behalf of the
company
Professional auditors work for the certification bodies. There are no
mandatory qualifications to become an auditor but certification bodies are
required to demonstrate that their auditors are competent. This is actually a
very difficult task and a variety of techniques and records have been
established by certification bodies to achieve it – to varying degrees of
success. Further, just because a certification body has a lot of records in
place, it doesn’t actually mean the auditor is any good. In practice,
registrars insist or at least prefer that the people they hire (either as
contractors or full time) are “registered†auditors.
For Lead Auditor we offer a qualification scheme that requires you to
pass a 5 day Lead Auditor Class(with a 2 hour exam) demonstrate with a CV
or resume that you have work experience of about 4 years, that you have more
specific work experience of about 3 years (e.g. in quality or environmental
sectors that you want to audit in) and then participate in audits to
demonstrate audit experience. During an ISO
audit you: verify that the management system is in compliance with the
relevant ISO standard. check to ensure that the actions taken to meet
the quality objectives of the organisation are suitable
There are multiple differences between the Internal Audit and
External Audit functions, which are as follows:
Internal auditors are company employees, while external auditors work
for an outside audit firm.
Internal auditors are hired by the company, while external auditors are
appointed by a third party source
Internal auditors do not have to be CPAs, while a CPA must
direct the activities of the external auditors.
Internal auditors are responsible to management, while external auditors
are responsible to the third party
Internal auditors can issue their findings in any type of report format,
while external auditors must use specific formats for their audit Opinions and management letters.
Internal auditors can be used to provide advice and other consulting
assistance to employees, while external auditors are constrained from
supporting an audit client too closely.
Internal audits are conducted throughout the year, while external
auditors conduct a single annual audit.
If a client is publicly-held, external auditors will also provide review services
three times per year.
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