Table 1 Comparison of the procedures –... | Emerald Publishing

Table 1

Comparison of the procedures – external audit vs official control

	External audits	Official controls
Type of procedure	Quality assurance	Conformity assessment
Necessity or prescription of procedure	Voluntary Action that should lead to some benefits	Compulsory Obligation to be performed
Overall description of procedure - main goal, object and process of evaluation	Systematic, independent and documented process for obtaining objective evidence and evaluating it objectively to determine the extent to which the criteria are fulfilled	Verify the compliance of products, services, working conditions and processes with the requirements set out in the legislation
Evaluators	Professional auditors or customer representatives	Competent authorities or inspectors
Evaluation criteria, requirements and guidelines	Formulated by customers and stakeholders or by specialized non-governmental standardization organizations	Prescribed in legal acts and compulsory national or international regulations
Main assumption	Evaluation of effectiveness and efficiency	Detection of errors and inconsistencies
Findings confidentiality	All results are confidential and are reported only to the audit client and auditee. There are no penalties	Results are used by official authorities and could be the basis for penalties

	External audits	Official controls
Type of procedure	Quality assurance	Conformity assessment
Necessity or prescription of procedure	VoluntaryAction that should lead to some benefits	CompulsoryObligation to be performed
Overall description of procedure - main goal, object and process of evaluation	Systematic, independent and documented process for obtaining objective evidence and evaluating it objectively to determine the extent to which the criteria are fulfilled	Verify the compliance of products, services, working conditions and processes with the requirements set out in the legislation
Evaluators	Professional auditors or customer representatives	Competent authorities or inspectors
Evaluation criteria, requirements and guidelines	Formulated by customers and stakeholders or by specialized non-governmental standardization organizations	Prescribed in legal acts and compulsory national or international regulations
Main assumption	Evaluation of effectiveness and efficiency	Detection of errors and inconsistencies
Findings confidentiality	All results are confidential and are reported only to the audit client and auditee. There are no penalties	Results are used by official authorities and could be the basis for penalties

Source(s): Authors' own elaboration