The lowdown on self-audits

Whether you are a franchisor or the owner of a business with multiple sites, self-auditing should be top of mind. Conducting site audits is essential to remain compliant and maintain quality standards. We know that particularly in the current age, it isn’t always practical for higher level managers to go out and conduct audits of their own. It can be a huge waste of time and resources, but it also isn't always possible when states/regions have different restrictions. Franchisors and high level managers should start implementing self-audits for managers or franchisees to complete themselves. Creating audits, completing them and reporting on them sounds like a lot of effort, but it’s so much easier than it sounds! Let’s take a look at how to implement self audits now.

With Op Central, implementing self-audits to your network of franchisees/managers is easy. There are 3 key steps to the self-auditing process: creating the questionnaire, gathering the submissions and analysing the submissions.

Creating the questionnaire

Start by creating a new questionnaire. It’s really easy to get started with an audit in our locations tab. Depending on the type of audit, you’re going to be asking different questions, but there are lots of ways to get the most out of your audits no matter what type of audit it is! Here are some of our pro tips:

• There are only a few required details to get you started. If you want to get the most out of your audits (and improve compliance) select ‘restrict file upload to camera’. That’s going to ensure no one is able to upload old images from their camera roll!
• Make use of the additional options! Allow respondents to upload files or add additional comments. These options can give you better insights without having to go to any effort later on.
• Add values to questions. Weighting questions based on their importance is much more necessary than you might think. For example, the state of the kitchen may be more important than the proper layout of the dining room. Therefore questions about the kitchen should be weighted more. 

Gathering the submissions

Depending on the frequency you set, the auditor will be reminded to complete the questionnaire until they have done so. With more urgent audits, perhaps you’ll want to set the notification frequency to every hour until it is completed, whereas with less urgent audits, you might select a frequency of every 2 or 3 days. 

Audit’s are really user friendly. It takes a user only a few minutes to navigate through all the questions, whether the questions are comprehensive, require file uploads or are just simply checkboxes. All audit’s can be completed on the user's mobile phone, allowing for portability - which is especially important if you have area managers going to several locations. Once a user reaches the end of the audit, their submission is time and geo stamped for your records. 

Analysing the submissions

Reporting is the most important part of the auditing process, as without insights and the ability to analyse the data, there’s no point in gathering the data at all! With Op Central, you are able to see real-time data from the submissions across all locations. Key reporting features include:

• Custom report builder: create unique reports based on your brand’s needs and how you like to view information. 
• Separation of data: take a deep dive into one location or take a comparative look at your locations, separating them by region, state, etc. 
• Action items: when reviewing submissions, hone in on the responses. If there are improvements to be made or tasks to be completed, let your auditor know! Add in action items for them to complete.

Auditing is extremely important for any business with multiple locations. It’s not just best practice, it's required for you to maintain compliance with both your own internal policies and externally mandated regulations. Audit Central has been purposely built with the requirements of modern businesses in mind, and is being continually improved to be the best system possible with limitless opportunities. For more information, take a look at Audit Central, or schedule a live demo with a product specialist today!