Quality and compliance audit forms

What is a quality and compliance checklist?

A quality and compliance checklist is a set of questions you work through to show that a process, product, site or supplier meets a defined standard, with the evidence recorded at the time. The standard might be your own procedure, a customer specification, a drawing, a management system standard such as ISO 9001 or ISO 14001, or a legal duty such as the waste duty of care.

The forms in this category fall into two kinds. Some are audits and inspections that check against a standard and find gaps, such as the internal audit checklist, store audit checklist and construction quality control checklist. Others are records that prove something happened, such as a calibration record, a waste transfer note or a first article inspection. Both kinds only work if the record is completed on the spot, by a named person, with the readings and photos to back it up.

Safety inspections sit in their own category: see health and safety forms. Snagging and handover records for building projects are under construction and handover.

Which quality records are a legal requirement in the UK?

Most quality paperwork is driven by contracts and certification rather than law. ISO 9001 is voluntary, but if you hold it your certification body will expect internal audits at planned intervals, records of non-conformities and the corrective action taken, and evidence that measuring equipment is calibrated or verified. Customers in aerospace, defence, rail and construction often write the same expectations into the contract.

Some records in this category do carry a legal duty. These are the ones most often asked for:

Waste transfer notes

If your business produces waste, you and the business taking it must both complete and sign a waste transfer note and keep a paper or electronic copy for 2 years. This sits under the duty of care in section 34 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990.

Noise at work

The Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005 set a lower exposure action value of 80 dB(A) daily or weekly exposure, an upper action value of 85 dB(A) and an exposure limit of 87 dB(A). A noise monitoring report records the readings that feed your noise risk assessment.

Work equipment inspection

PUWER requires work equipment to be maintained in good repair and, where it is exposed to conditions that cause deterioration, inspected at suitable intervals by a competent person, with the result recorded. A tool register is often where that inspection history lives.

Contractor competence

On construction work, the CDM Regulations 2015 say you must not appoint a designer or contractor unless you are satisfied they have the skills, knowledge and experience for the job. A supplier evaluation form is a practical way to record that check.

Sources: GOV.UK: Waste transfer notes, Environmental Protection Act 1990, section 34, Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005, regulation 4, PUWER 1998, regulation 6, CDM Regulations 2015, regulation 8 and BSI: ISO 9001 quality management.

How to run an internal audit that finds real problems

An internal audit is only useful if it tests what people actually do, not what the procedure says they do. Plan the audit around the processes that matter most or have caused trouble before, pick a scope you can cover properly in the time, and choose an auditor who does not work in that area. The ISO auditing practices group guidance on internal audit is a useful read on planning, sampling and reporting.

On the day, follow real jobs through the process. Pick a recent order, batch or project and trace it: the contract review, the purchase order, the goods-in check, the work instructions, the final inspection and the delivery record. Each gap you find goes on a non-conformance report with the evidence (a photo of the out-of-date drawing, the reading that was out of tolerance), a root cause and a named owner for the corrective action. A short Gemba walk between audits keeps managers seeing the floor rather than the paperwork.

Close the loop. Most audit findings that repeat do so because the corrective action fixed the symptom rather than the cause. Set a date to check the action worked and record that check on the same report.

Sources: ISO/TC 176 Auditing Practices Group: Internal audit and HSE: Managing for health and safety, management systems.

Inspection and test plans, hold points and acceptance tests

On engineering and construction work, quality is controlled through an inspection and test plan (ITP). It lists each activity, the standard or drawing it is checked against, who inspects it, what record is produced and whether it is a hold point (work stops until the client or engineer signs) or a witness point (they are invited to attend). The ITP then points to the records that prove each step: welding inspection, coating inspection, material inspection on delivery and the construction quality control checklist for each element.

For equipment, the equivalent is acceptance testing. A factory acceptance test proves the equipment works at the supplier's works before it ships, when faults are cheapest to fix. A site acceptance test repeats the key tests after installation, connected to the real services. In manufacturing, a first article inspection checks every characteristic on the drawing for the first part off a new process; aerospace work follows AS9102 for this. A job traveller then follows each batch through its operations and a line clearance checklist makes sure nothing from the last run is left on the line, a standard step under good manufacturing practice.

Visual weld inspection should be done by someone trained to the acceptance criteria in the specification, before any non-destructive testing that the spec calls for.

Sources: SAE: AS9102C First article inspection requirement, TWI: Visual inspection of welds and MHRA: Good manufacturing practice and good distribution practice.

What a good calibration and equipment record shows

An inspection is only as good as the instrument behind it. If a torque wrench, gauge or meter is out of calibration, every reading taken with it since the last good check is in doubt, so your calibration record needs to show more than a date.

Identity

A unique ID or serial number on the instrument and the record, so the two cannot be mixed up.

Traceability

Who calibrated it and the certificate number. UKAS accredited calibration laboratories give results traceable to national standards; you can check a lab on the UKAS directory.

As found and as left

The readings before any adjustment, as well as after. An as found result outside tolerance means you need to review the work the instrument was used on.

Due date and status

The next due date and a clear in use, quarantined or withdrawn status, matching the label on the instrument.

Location and holder

Where the item is and who has it, which is what a tool register adds for the wider tool stock.

Sources: UKAS: Calibration laboratory accreditation and UKAS: Find an accredited organisation.

Environmental, security and continuity checks

An environmental site inspection looks for the things that cause pollution incidents: oil and chemical storage without bunding or drip trays, blocked or unprotected drains, spill kits missing, waste stored in the open and dust or noise leaving the site. GOV.UK pollution prevention guidance and the oil storage rules are the usual reference points, and if you hold ISO 14001 these inspections feed its monitoring requirements.

On the security side, a security risk assessment records the threats to a site, how likely and harmful they are and the controls you rely on, following the approach in ProtectUK's risk management basics. The IT risk assessment does the same for systems and data, and the NCSC risk management guidance explains how to keep it practical. Both feed a business continuity plan, which sets out who does what when a site, a system or a key supplier is lost. The Home Office booklet Expecting the unexpected is a plain guide to writing one.

Sources: GOV.UK: Pollution prevention for businesses, GOV.UK: Storing oil at a home or business, ProtectUK: Risk management basics, NCSC: Risk management guidance and Home Office: Expecting the unexpected.

Turning audits and inspections into a report people act on

Paper audits tend to fail in the same places: the photo that proves the finding lives on someone's phone, the reading is written on a glove, and the report is typed up days later from memory. With SiteSurvey the auditor completes the form on an iPhone, iPad or Android device, offline if the site has no signal, and adds photos with annotation, readings, notes and a signature as they go. Each completed form becomes a branded PDF report that is ready to send when the audit finishes.

Every form here can be edited to match your own procedure, scoring or customer specification, or you can build your own in the form builder. Open any form page to see every question and try the form live before you use it on site. For retail and hospitality brand standards, also see retail and hospitality forms.