What is an auditee?
The auditee is the organisation — or the part of it — that is being audited. ISO 19011, the international guideline for auditing management systems, defines it simply as the organisation as a whole, or parts of it, being audited.
That can be a whole company, one production site, a single department or process, or a supplier whose operation a customer audits. In everyday use the word also covers the people who speak for the organisation during the audit: the manager who hosts the auditor, the staff who are interviewed, and the person who answers for the findings.
The word is sometimes misspelled audittee; the correct spelling has one t before the double e: auditee.
Auditee, auditor and audit client
Three roles meet in every audit, and they are easy to confuse:
| Role | Who it is | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Auditee | The organisation or part of it being audited | A salmon farm being audited against the ASC Farm Standard |
| Auditor | The person who carries out the audit | The certification body's lead auditor |
| Audit client | The organisation or person who asks for the audit | The farm itself (for certification), or a retailer auditing its supplier |
In an internal audit, the auditee is a department or process of your own organisation, and the auditor is a colleague trained to audit it. In a second-party audit, a customer audits you as its supplier. In a third-party audit, an independent certification body audits you against a standard such as ISO 22000, GlobalG.A.P. or the MSC Chain of Custody Standard.
What the auditee is responsible for
An audit only works if the auditee makes it possible. What that means in practice:
| When | What the auditee does |
|---|---|
| Before | Agrees the dates, scope and plan; tells the people involved what the audit covers; gathers the documents and records the auditor will ask for |
| During | Gives access to the sites, people and information in the plan; provides a guide where needed; answers questions honestly and shows evidence rather than describing it |
| At the closing meeting | Listens to the findings, asks for anything unclear to be explained, and agrees the facts of each one |
| After | Investigates the cause of each nonconformity, plans and carries out corrective action, and sends evidence of it within the time agreed |
The last step is where most audits are won or lost. A correction fixes the problem that was found; a corrective action removes its cause so it does not happen again — and auditors look for the second.
The auditee's rights
Being audited is not a one-sided process. An auditee can expect to:
- know the audit's objectives, scope and criteria in advance, and receive an audit plan;
- have the plan's timing and the auditors' needs agreed with them, not imposed;
- be accompanied by a guide, and have its confidential information treated as confidential;
- hear every finding before the auditor leaves, with the evidence behind it;
- respond to the findings, and — with a certification body — use its complaints and appeals process if it disagrees with a decision.
How to prepare as an auditee
- Read the audit plan and the standard's requirements for the areas in scope.
- Run your own internal audit of those areas first, and close what it finds.
- Check that the records the auditor will sample are complete, current and easy to find.
- Brief the people who will be interviewed: they should describe what they actually do, and show where it is recorded.
- Prepare the evidence that last year's findings were closed and did not recur.
- Name one person to coordinate on the day and to own the corrective actions afterwards.
Questions people ask
What does auditee mean?
An auditee is the organisation, or part of an organisation, that is being audited — the party whose activities, records and results the auditor examines against the audit criteria.
Is it auditee or audittee?
The correct spelling is auditee, with one t before the ending. Audittee is a common misspelling.
Who is the auditee in an internal audit?
The department, process or site of your own organisation being audited. Its manager usually hosts the audit and answers for the findings.
Can an auditee disagree with an audit finding?
Yes. The auditee can question a finding at the closing meeting and ask to see the evidence. With a certification body, a decision the auditee still disagrees with can be taken through the body's appeals process.
What happens to the auditee after the audit?
The auditee receives the audit report, investigates the cause of each nonconformity, carries out corrective action and sends evidence of it to the auditor within the agreed time. Certification follows once major findings are closed.
Built for the auditee's side of the table
4Auditee keeps the audit programme, the findings, the corrective actions and the evidence in one place, so the next audit starts prepared. Read the standards guides, or see how it works.