TAudits are commonly employed to guarantee that a particular item or process meets specific standards, In the case of ISO system standards, audits are conducted to ensure that the management system remains effective and meets the requirements of the relevant standard. To accomplish this, an audit schedule must be conducted. The audit schedule is based on the size, complexity and risk of the organisation being audited. It must take into account the organisation’s ability to implement changes and improvements in order to ensure that the management system remains effective and compliant with the relevant standard. In order to ensure the success of your ISO 27001 audit, this article presents four essentials you have to take.

Pre-Audit Questionnaire

To decide on the audit’s emphasis and to know which parts are outside its purview, you must undertake a risk-based evaluation. Industry studies, prior ISMS reports, including the ISMS policy, could all be used as sources. Check that the scope is pertinent to the organisation; it must typically align with the ISMS’s certified scope. Auditors might have to examine how the ISMS is put into practice at each site of a major organisation. If reviewing every place isn’t practicable, you must, at the very least, take an accurate sample. Auditors must also identify and get in touch with the key stakeholders during the survey to ask for any material that will be examined during the ISO 27001 audit.

Planning and Organising

Auditors should deconstruct the audit after reaching an agreement on it. In order to do this, an ISMS audit work plan must be created in which the administration and the audit’s timing and assets are agreed upon.  Plans for audits typically contain points that outline specific chances for auditors to give people informal interim reports. These points define and delineate the remaining stages of the audit and set borders around them. These updates give both auditors and businesses the opportunity to express issues about the process or entry to data or individuals. In order to focus on the elements you believe offer the highest risk, must the ISMS be deemed to be insufficient? You have to define the timing of key audit activity.

Fieldwork

Once an audit work plan has been created, auditors should collect data by speaking with workers, executives, and other stakeholders. In addition, they must study data and paperwork related to the ISMS and look at those procedures in action. As proof is acquired, tests should be carried out to confirm it, and work papers must be created to record the testing. The auditor basically reviews paperwork pertaining to and resulting from the ISMS during the first part of fieldwork.

Reporting

This crucial step in the audit procedure often includes the following:

• a brief introduction outlining the purpose, goals, schedule, and volume of the job completed;
• a conclusion, a succinct explanation of the main results, and an executive overview;
• the report’s planned recipients, as well as, if applicable, categorisation and distribution rules;
• thorough research and analysis;
• observations and suggestions; 
• findings from the auditor outlining any suggestions or restrictions on the audit’s scope.

The design audit report needs to be shown to management, who should then discuss it. More evaluation and adjusting may be needed because business often agrees to a plan in the final report.