Managing and Completing Audit Checklists

A key part of an audit involves an auditor asking questions to auditees, recording their answers and raising observations and / or non-conformances where appropriate.

1. Adding / Editing / Removing a Checklist

You can either create a new checklist or add an existing one from a template. - Please note that these templates must be created in the Windows version of Q-Pulse.

To add a checklist from a template:

In the Checklists section of the audit, click the icon.
Select which template you wish to use, then click the [OK] button.
To make changes to the template, click its name.

You can remove any checklist by clicking its icon, followed by [OK] to confirm.

To add a new blank checklist:

In the Checklists section of the audit, click the icon.
You must give the checklist a title. You can also provide a description.

2. Adding / Editing / Removing Checklist Questions

In the Checklists section of the audit, click the title of any checklist to make changes to its questions. Any checklist with a icon cannot be completed or edited, as it has pre-defined responses. It should either be deleted or completed in the Windows version of Q-Pulse.

Within the checklist screen, you can remove any question by clicking its icon, followed by [OK] to confirm.
You can also print the entire checklist by clicking the icon.
You can edit any existing question by clicking its name.
To add a new question, click the icon.

Each question contains the following:

Question: This field is mandatory.
Question Not Applicable: Tick this box to indicate to the user recording the answers to the checklist if you don't want to include this question.
Response: The answer to the question. See Answering Checklist Questions below.
Area of Standard: If the question relates to an area of standard, select it from the drop-down list.
Available Score: If you wish the auditor to assign scores to answers in this checklist, enter the maximum score.
- - If you choose to assign a score to a question, then ALL questions in the checklist must have an available score. You will NOT be able to assign an available score to a question if there are other questions without an available score.
Actual Score: See Answering Checklist Questions below.
Guidance: Enter any additional information to help the auditor when asking this question.
Click [OK] to save the question.

3. Answering Checklist Questions and raising Observations / Non-Conformances

When the audit has a status of " - Performed", you are ready to answer the checklist questions. You can answer questions in any order. Click any question to open it.

Enter the auditee's response to the question.
If the question has an available score, enter the actual score for the question. This cannot be greater than the available score.
Click [OK] to save your response.

You can also raise an observation or a non-conformance against any audit with a status of "Performed".

To raise an observation:

From the list of questions, click the icon.
The Raised Date and Raised By fields will default to today's date and your name, although you can change these if required.
Enter any information about the observation in the Details field.
Click [OK] to save.

To raise a non-conformance:

From the list of questions, click either the or the icon (for each audit calendar, non-conformances are managed in either the CA/PA or the Incidents module).
For more information, see either raising a CA/PA or raising an Incident.

Any observations / non-conformances raised against checklist questions can be viewed in the Findings section of the audit. The checklist / question number will be shown in the Details field.