Audit finding and action tracker

How it works

An audit finding is only useful when it is understood, corrected, acted on and shown to have worked. This tracker keeps each finding with its clause, type, area, cause, correction, corrective action, owner, due date and effectiveness check, proposes the due date from a rule you set, and shows what is open, overdue, how old it is, and what has been closed without proof that it worked.

1. Record the finding. Give each finding a number, the audit it came from, the date it was raised, the standard and clause (as free text, for example IATF 16949 8.5.1), its type and the area. Types are major nonconformity, minor nonconformity, observation and opportunity for improvement.
2. Propose the due date from a rule. Each type has a number of days to respond, which you can edit in the settings. When a finding has no due date typed in, the due date in force is the raised date plus the days for its type. A rule of 0 gives no due date. The defaults here (30 days for a major, 60 for a minor, 90 for an observation) are editorial starting points: replace them with the response times your certification body, customer or procedure sets.due date = raised date + days for the type, unless a due date is typed in
3. Work from cause to proof. For a nonconformity record the root cause, the correction (dealing with the problem itself), the corrective action (removing the cause), the owner, the closed date, then an effectiveness check with its date and result. This follows the order of ISO 9001:2015 clause 10.2: react, evaluate the need for action, implement it, review its effectiveness, and update risks if needed.
4. Age the open findings. For each unclosed finding the age is today minus the raised date, placed in one of four buckets: 0 to 30, 31 to 60, 61 to 90 or over 90 days. A finding is overdue when today is later than its due date and it is not closed.age = today − raised date; overdue days = today − due date, when positive
5. Measure closure. The closure rate is closed findings over all findings; the same is shown for nonconformities alone. The average days to close is the mean of closed date minus raised date over closed findings that have both dates. The on-time rate is the share of closed findings closed on or before their due date.closure rate = closed / all findings; average days to close = sum(closed − raised) / number closed
6. Find the gaps. A closed nonconformity with no effectiveness check is listed, because closing is not the same as proving the action worked. The tool also flags an action under way with no root cause, a closed finding that failed its check, dates out of order, duplicate numbers and open findings with no owner. Findings are counted by clause and by area to show where the system is weakest.

Sources

The methods and default figures rest on these public sources. The wording here is our own; read the source for its full text.

• ISO 9001:2015, Quality management systems, Requirements, clause 10.2 Nonconformity and corrective action, International Organization for Standardization, September 2015. The order of reacting, evaluating, acting and reviewing effectiveness that the row fields follow; cited by clause only and the method is written in our own words.
• ISO 19011:2018, Guidelines for auditing management systems (opens in a new tab), International Organization for Standardization, July 2018. Audit findings, conclusions and follow-up of audit results; cited by name only.
• Rules for achieving and maintaining IATF recognition, 6th edition, International Automotive Task Force, published 31 March 2024. Sets how certification bodies classify and follow up nonconformities for IATF 16949 certification; cited by name only. Check the edition for the response times that apply to you.