The Annual Internal Audit for RTOs

Bringing an RTO’s compliance requirements all together for review in an audit, is one exercise many RTOs undertake on an annual basis.

Typically, an Annual Internal Audit is all about checking back over the evidence requirements (identified in the User’s guide) and reviewing the relevance of the evidence that are used in practice against the RTO’s current Policies and Procedures. The retrospective look often reveals areas that indicate that the RTO’s compliance has been missing or insufficient for a long period of time.

For smaller RTOs this exercise can be a two-day event. The internal audit for larger RTOs, however, can take much longer to complete due to the involvement of other staff and, in some cases, other locations.

But, an alternative strategy for all RTOs is to undertake compliance reviews by systematically reviewing Standards on a fortnightly, monthly or bi monthly basis.

The ‘Standard by Standard’ focused review is more gradual, but does allow the RTO’s management to consider all of the possible current compliance requirements more thoroughly without the time pressure. If corrective actions are needed, the RTO’s management can undertake or delegate the additional correction work in the ensuing time between reviews.

Then, when it’s time for the RTO’s Registration Audit, it’s no longer an arduous process. Preparation becomes a quick and painless exercise of gathering the information from the previous period of ‘Standard by Standard’ reviews.

Audit Answers is Cloud Based RTO Management System that supports ‘standard by standard’ review. Its dedicated and editable review calendar helps guide the review of each standard and keeps your compliance monitoring on track.

For an online demonstration of Audit Answers, please contact Peter via email peter@rtoanswers.com.au or phone 0408 725 940

26 May 2016