Introduction
In the context of investigation into corporate products & services, I have often heard these terms (Audit & Inspection) together. But let me tell you they are not similar. Experts who have been working in this area for years will tell you that these are two different modes of investigating products & services. Ostensibly, inspections are observation based, they are used to identify hazards & control measures, audits on the other hand are prolonged procedures which involve evaluation & examination of processes in an organization. Inspection, unlike audit, never really goes into answering the ‘why’ question related to an investigation, it keeps its concern only up to the ‘what’ question. Auditing is a complex task which encompasses several steps like planning, scheduling, executing, & reporting to get a complete version of the ongoing investigation. Inspection is usually a one-step process which simply doesn’t go into the nuances of the investigation and deals with the superficial investigation. Nevertheless, there are software applications which can support both audit & investigation depending on the requirements so differences between audit and inspection software are minimal. In this blog, after elaborating on the audit & inspection, I will introduce you to an advanced audit & inspection software, so keep reading.
Definition of Audit & its advantages
The audit is a detailed mode of investigation into the activities & processes of the organizations through various means such as data collection, surveillance, record checking, conducting interviews & others. Audits go through the complete documentation to ensure that the organization is compliant with the internal & external policies and regulations. Audits are usually very long & time consuming as they involve multiple steps. Audits are usually conducted by external bodies leading to objectiveness in the process, being an externally led initiative it is free of any kind of bias which may arise if it were internally led. Here are some advantages of audits—
- An audit gives a complete view of the organization by taking a holistic approach towards investigation. From top to bottom, it skims through every function to present a complete picture
- By doing an audit you can get a fair assessment of assets & investments of an organization
- It identifies & addresses multiple risks & also helps in fraud management by providing several checks & balances at every step in the complex processes
- It helps in building reputation. So, if you have successfully passed an auditing you can confidently show it to different stakeholders like partners, banks, investors & others who will now have more faith in you
Do not delay, get an audit management software right now.
Definition of Inspection & its advantages
Inspections usually have to do with fewer & less severe investigations to ensure desired conditions of a workplace are met. It is a process based on observation which works towards increasing the safety and efficiency of an organization. To perform an inspection, officials usually take help of the best inspection software which has a pre-configured inspection checklist which has questions based on predetermined notions. Often, inspection is used to examine a particular product or service and is usually quantitative in nature. Here are its advantages –
- Inspections are primarily aimed at identifying potential sources of hazards at the workplace to prevent accidents, illness & loss of life at workplace
- As it is less time consuming & granular it may be carried out more frequently to ensure timely & frequent scrutiny of the entities
- It fosters trust in workers & supervisors who feel more safe & comfortable in working in an environment where inspections are frequent
- Inspection has one more key advantage – it sets accountability in the people who feel as if they are the owner of the tasks
So, say yes to an inspection management software right now.
Differences between audit & inspection
Here is a tabular difference between the audit & inspection.
| Comparison Parameter | Audit | Inspection |
| Method | It is usually a comprehensive, deeper & large-scale method to do analysis of the processes | It is a limited, superficial, & granular mode of investigation which looks at the issues one by one |
| Duration | It is very time consuming. Taking into account the various steps, it can run for days. That also makes it less frequent, maybe once a year | They are less time consuming and can be done frequently, maybe more than once in a day to ensure smooth operative conditions |
| Investigation nature | It is usually qualitative which warrants employing tactics like data collection, interviews and others | It is usually quantitative and doesn’t require interviews and extensive data collection methods |
| Structure | Being very complex & thorough, it is difficult to embody it to a predefined structure. It is free flowing which runs at various levels and through different means | Being less complex it is conducted based on rigid, checklist based methods to keep an account of products & services |
| Investigation area | It is widespread, often including the entire organization, right from top to bottom, even including the entire management system | It usually focuses on lower end tasks such as workplace, equipment & activities |
Despite having these differences, an audit software and inspection management app can very well perform these two tasks together.
What is WovVIA?
After we have understood in detail the key differences between audit & inspection, it’s time now to find an audit and inspection software application which can help an organization in these things. However, you need to know that you don’t need to purchase separate tools for these two activities, a single tool will be just fine for both audit & inspection. Keeping in mind the requirements of the EHS audit & other inspection, one application which is just fit for the purpose is WovVIA – it’s a cloud-based, unified, lightweight, powerful software application which will help you in every kind of audit & inspection. Here are the key features of this tool.
Key features of WovVIA
- Create audit & inspection forms on the click of a button by defining multiple answer types like free text, radio buttons & check boxes
- Schedule, plan & assign audits to individuals
- Track the progress of the audit with auto notification and reminders
- Multi-layered, role based access to reports
- Photography & videography of facts & findings
- Do relative performance evaluation through period & location wise data
- Identify non-compliance, automatically log tickets, & assign it to individuals to follow up
- Track the follow up actions and closure of non-compliance
- Do-it-yourself, consolidated dashboard with configurable interactive reports
Conclusion
Hopefully, I have managed to delineate the key differences between inspection & audit in this blog. Without a doubt, they both serve a very important purpose in an organization, however, their function and their output are clearly different. If you are looking for an audit & inspection software, I have made your life simple by introducing you to WovVIA. This is an easy to use solution for small, medium & large organizations. If you want further help on audit & inspection or want to know more about WovVIA then feel free to contact us. One more thing, this software application is available in a FREE-FOREVER plan, which means you can try it for free for as long as you want without paying anything for it.