Audits & Certifications

Internal Quality Audit: Guide and Checklist

By Claudia · · 6 min read

Auditors reviewing a production line with clipboards during an internal quality audit

Internal Quality Audit Without Surprises

The internal quality audit is one of the most powerful tools a quality manager in the food industry has at their disposal. And yet, it still creates a certain amount of tension on teams whenever the date approaches. The good news is that, with solid planning and the right technology behind it, this process can become a comfortable, useful and even revealing routine. In this article we explain how to do it step by step, without last-minute scrambling and without unpleasant surprises.

What an internal quality audit is for

Before talking about how to run an internal audit, it's worth being clear on what it's for. An internal audit isn't a punitive inspection or a bureaucratic hoop to jump through. It's essentially a self-assessment exercise: an opportunity for the organization itself to check whether its processes meet the requirements set, whether procedures are being followed correctly, and whether the quality management system is working as it should.

In the food sector, this practice is especially important. Companies must guarantee compliance not only with their own internal standards but also with current legislation and with the requirements of standards such as ISO 9001 and ISO 22000 (ISO, n.d.), BRCGS (BRCGS, n.d.) or IFS, among others. Internal audits are precisely the mechanism that lets you catch deviations before they turn into serious non-conformities or, worse, into problems that affect food safety.

What's more, a well-run internal audit provides valuable input for continuous improvement: it identifies inefficiencies, uncovers latent risks, and generates objective evidence that strengthens the quality culture across the whole organization.

How to plan it and prepare the checklist

The success of an internal audit starts long before the day it takes place. Planning is the key. The first step is to set up an annual internal audit program, defining the processes or areas to be audited, the frequency, the responsible auditors and the schedule. This program should take into account how critical each process is, the results of previous audits, and any significant changes in the organization.

If your company works under the ISO 9001 standard, this program is an explicit requirement. The standard requires internal audits to be planned, carried out and documented systematically, covering every process of the management system over time. You can find more on the specific requirements in our article on ISO 9001 internal audits.

Once the program is defined, it's time to prepare the checklist. This document is the auditor's compass during the visit: it captures all the questions, evidence to review and evaluation criteria. A good checklist should:

  • Be based on the applicable requirements (standard, legislation, internal procedures).
  • Cover both documentation and actual practice on the plant floor.
  • Be detailed enough to leave no blind spots, without turning into an endless questionnaire.
  • Adapt to the specific process or area being audited.

Preparing the checklist in advance also lets the auditee know what will be reviewed and have the necessary documentation ready, which reduces stress and speeds up the day enormously.

Execution, findings and report

On the day of the audit, the auditor's job is to gather objective evidence to assess whether the system works as intended. This means reviewing records and documents, observing practices on the plant floor, interviewing the staff involved, and comparing what's said with what's actually done.

During execution, it's essential to keep a professional, constructive attitude. The goal isn't to find someone to blame, but to identify improvement opportunities. An effective internal auditor knows how to ask the right questions, listens actively, and records findings with precision and objectivity.

Findings can be classified into several categories: conformities, non-conformities (major or minor), and observations or improvement areas. Every finding must be backed by concrete evidence: a missing record, a procedure that isn't followed, a documented out-of-range temperature. Without evidence, there's no valid finding.

At the end of the audit, the auditor drafts the audit report, a document that captures the scope, methodology, findings identified, associated evidence, and overall conclusions. This report is the basis for the corrective actions that follow, and it's an essential record within the management system.

It's worth remembering that, as set out in Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 on the hygiene of foodstuffs (Regulation [EC] 852/2004, 2004), food business operators must implement and maintain procedures based on HACCP principles and document their effectiveness. Internal audits are one of the mechanisms that let you demonstrate that compliance systematically.

For the full process in more detail, we recommend our article on how to run an internal quality audit step by step, where we break down every phase with practical examples.

How to manage findings and evidence in Solved

One of the most critical points of any internal audit is what happens afterward: managing the findings. Opening a non-conformity, assigning an owner, setting a deadline, defining the corrective action, verifying its effectiveness, and closing the finding with evidence. A process that, when handled on paper or in scattered spreadsheets, eats up time, causes errors, and makes follow-up difficult.

In Solved, all of these tasks are centralized in a single platform built specifically for quality managers in the food industry. With Solved you can:

  • Plan your internal audit program visually, assigning dates, auditors and scope for each audit.
  • Run the audit with digital checklists, fillable from any device, with the option to attach photos and documents as evidence directly from the plant floor.
  • Log findings in real time, classify them by severity, and automatically link them to the corresponding corrective actions.
  • Track the status of each finding: open, in progress, pending verification or closed, with automatic alerts so no deadline slips through.
  • Generate automatic reports ready to present to management or external auditors, with the entire process fully traceable.

The result is an internal audit system that runs continuously and stays organized, without relying on anyone's memory or files that get lost. When the next external audit comes around, all the evidence will be accessible, organized, and its full history just a click away.

An internal quality audit doesn't have to be a tense moment. With the right planning, the right checklists, a well-trained team, and a tool like Solved that centralizes the whole process, it can become one of the most valuable assets in your quality system. The surprise disappears once the process is under control.

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