Audit criteria

Audit criteria can be a standard, a regulation, the company’s own procedures or a contract. Agreeing on them before the audit avoids findings that the auditee did not expect to be measured against.

set of requirements (3.23) used as a reference against which objective evidence (3.8) is compared Note 1 to entry: If the audit criteria are legal (including statutory or regulatory) requirements, the words “compliance” or “non-compliance” are often used in an audit finding (3.10). Note 2 to entry: Requirements may include policies, procedures, work instructions, legal requirements, contractual obligations, etc. [SOURCE: ISO 9000:2015, 3.13.7, modified — the definition has been changed and Notes to entry 1 and 2 have been added]

ISO 19011:2018, clause 3.7