As the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic progresses, we appreciate most of our customers and organizations worldwide will be impacted. To help in any way we can, our team has used industry guidelines to create a series of COVID-19 (Coronavirus) related audit templates for use during your trial of AuditComply. Simply request a demo now.
Most organizations will agree, COVID-19 is not going away anytime soon. While governments implement further controls to help flatten the curve, it’s likely this virus will stick around for some time, with many estimating 6 – 8 months before life goes back to normal. It’s a challenging period for auditors everywhere, trying to continue operations without disruption. It’s even more challenging for those that are not yet technologically enabled, without the luxury of remote auditing capabilities to tackle the industry’s most pressing challenge yet. Work must go on, albeit under different conditions.
The Financial Reporting Council recently published a COVID-19 Guide stating that all audits should continue to comply with full required standards – it’s not the time to take the finger off the pulse.
Time to Embrace the Remote Audit
Given restrictions on travel and access to company sites, many auditors and control owners must embrace new ways of gathering sufficient and reliable audit information. A cloud-based Risk and Audit Management platform will help ensure the health and safety of auditors by eliminating the need for travel. Equipped with remote auditing capabilities, AuditComply users are operating around the clock to ensure their supply chains and operations remain uninterrupted. Continuing to assess, manage and report on all Risk & Compliance processes from home.
Mitigating Employee Risk
Organizations still using manual processes must take into consideration the Health and Safety of their team. Auditors could be putting their own lives at risk by operating in hazardous conditions, something we are sure that organizations don’t want to do. However, moving the collection of audit evidence and the audit process to cloud platforms like AuditComply provides auditors with the flexibility to remotely capture data and provide feedback in real-time. This also allows organizations operating internationally to mitigate delays in their risk and audit reporting caused by the COVID-19 situation.
Falling Behind the Competition
Those organizations using shared drives and excel spreadsheets before the Coronavirus outbreak are likely to be behind the curve when this Pandemic is over. They’ll be playing catch up, dealing with the issues resulting from poor collaboration, version control errors, lower audit numbers and inefficiencies in reporting. A cloud platform allows your team to continue working from home without any disruption to activity, boosting productivity and performance.
We are still to confirm the effect COVID-19 will have on Certification Body and regulatory compliance timelines. However, by leveraging the right Risk and Audit technology, organizations will catch up faster and ensure the continuity of their operations once everything goes back to normal.
Time To Act
It’s now the perfect time to embrace a digital transformation. Every AuditComply implementation is done remotely – we’re used to getting a remote team set up and running instantly. By using this time wisely to implement an Enterprise Risk Management platform, organizations will be in a better position to respond to rising challenges now and in the near future.