Audit & Corrective Actions Management

Governance Risk and Compliance software

The Sword Achiever - Audit and Corrective Action Management, as a standalone module or as part of the overall Sword Achiever GRC suite, provides a truly integrated solution. Time and cost savings will be swiftly and continually realized and prioritization and scheduling of audits will become an integral part of the business management process.

Sword Achiever - Audit and Corrective Action Management enables organizations to visibly demonstrate adherence to auditing requirements whilst also identifying areas for business improvement.

A robust internal audit program reviews the business processes and functions of an organization and identifies risks, problems and opportunities for improvement. The audit programme will be a strategic resource to the board and management team, knowing that the organization has effective and compliant business policies and processes in place.

In order to evidence adherence to corporate governance policies, Enterprise Risk Management and compliance (GRC) requirements, it is vital that a single GRC management platform is in place, which delivers an integrated solution across the organization. Additionally, this management system should be subject to a planned audit program.

Specific features and benefits include:

• Audit planning - The creation and maintenance of audit checklists ensures consistency and accuracy in the auditing process
• Audit profiles, defining the scope and frequency of the audit, automate the audit scheduling process so that they are actioned in a timely manner
• Associating an audit with one or more standards or pieces of legislation ensures that compliance with many individual standards can be demonstrated in a single audit schedule, saving time and reducing costs
• Role-based access across the organization, means that users can only access the information that they need, delivering security of sensitive data
• Audit trails ensure clear traceability of actions throughout the audit and corrective action process, meaning that any anomalies can be easily isolated

NON-CONFORMANCE AND IMPROVEMENT MANAGEMENT

• Non-conformances or improvement opportunities highlighted during an audit can be documented and ownership identified to help ensure rectification
• Problems can be associated with specific compliance areas and business processes so that high risk areas can be quickly identified
• Problem costs can be identified so that resources can be allocated to areas where the business will best benefit from them.

FLEXIBLE CONFIGURATION

• Customer configurable audit types, non-conformance types, categorization and keywords mean that the system reflects the organization’s needs and delivers information via an intuitive interface
• Configured default settings for audit planning and non-conformance management, offer ease of use for all participants in the audit process
• Configuration enables audits to be completed against a process, compliance standard, department or a single document

WORKFLOW AND ESCALATION PROCESSES

• Best practice workflows, for audit and problem management processes, ensure that the audit program results in on-going improvement
• All stages of the audit and corrective action process use email notification, via familiar existing email systems. This supports user acceptance and reduces training requirements
• Incomplete actions can be escalated using a configurable escalation engine, ensuring that all audits and corrective actions are monitored to completion

MANAGEMENT REPORTING

• Reports produced from Sword Achiever audit management identify all outstanding actions in the system, highlighting potential problems and areas for improvement
• Reports of non-conformances by problem type, status, date, root cause, risk rating and many other parameters support business decision making, based on accurate and relevant audit data

INTEGRATION WITH DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT

• Audits can be associated with processes stored in the document management system
• Audit processes and checklist are readily available to auditors at the point of audit
• The system makes it easy to demonstrate that an audit schedule covers all GRC management and system requirements