The auditor's request list has 60 items, and the evidence sits in four places.
The applicable requirements are set out in the regulations; their implementation lives in policies, work instructions and minutes. Before the audit, someone hunts for the right document for each item, often on a drive maintained by another department. Anyone who does not deliver that week holds up the whole list.
60request itemsThe auditor sends the list for the audit with a reporting date of 30 September.
4repositoriesPolicies, work instructions, meeting minutes and training records are stored separately.
23items without evidenceFor more than one item in three, the first pass turns up nothing usable.
3departmental inputsThree departments have to supply input, and each responds at its own pace.
50% less audit preparation comes down to the 23 items that previously had to be tracked down from scratch.
The 50% reduction in audit preparation is this agent's headline figure. The numbers of request items, repositories and departmental inputs describe a typical audit preparation in compliance, not actual counts.