If you are working towards auditor certification through Exemplar Global or IRCA, one of the most common points of confusion is the audit log. Specifically, what exactly needs to go in it, how to structure it, and what happens when a certification body or scheme assessor reviews it. Getting your audit log for certification right from the start saves you a lot of frustration later. This article walks through everything you need to know, from what an audit log actually is to the specific details that assessors look for when evaluating your audit experience.
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What Is an Audit Log and Why Does It Matter?
An audit log is a structured record of your auditing experience. It documents each audit you have participated in, your role in that audit, the standard you audited against, the duration of your involvement, and the industry or sector involved. Think of it as your professional evidence file, the document that proves you have done the work, not just studied for it.
For most personnel certification schemes, completing a training course is only part of the requirement. You also need to demonstrate a minimum number of audits and audit days before you can apply for certification or upgrade your grade. The audit log is how you prove that experience exists.
Without a well-maintained log, you may find yourself sitting on years of auditing experience with nothing coherent to show for it. Assessors cannot take your word for it. They need a record they can evaluate, and in some cases, verify.
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Which Certification Schemes Require an Audit Log?
Both Exemplar Global and IRCA require audit experience as part of their personnel certification criteria. The specific requirements vary by grade and standard, but the principle is the same across both schemes. You need documented evidence of audits you have conducted or participated in.
For an Exemplar Global Certified Auditor (A grade) in quality, for example, you typically need to demonstrate a minimum number of complete audits conducted as a lead auditor or team member, along with a corresponding number of audit days. IRCA has similar tiered requirements for their Provisional Auditor, Auditor, Senior Auditor, and Principal Auditor grades.
If you are working towards certification across multiple standards, such as ISO 9001, ISO 14001, and ISO 45001, you will need to track experience against each standard separately. Audits of an integrated management system can sometimes count across multiple standards, but you need to record this clearly in your log.
For a detailed comparison of the two main schemes, see our article on Exemplar Global vs IRCA Certification: Which Is Worth More in 2026.
What Information Should Each Audit Log Entry Include?
This is where many auditors fall short. They keep a rough list of audits they have done, but the entries lack the detail that assessors need to evaluate the experience properly. Each entry in your audit log should capture the following information.
Organisation Audited
Record the name of the organisation you audited. If confidentiality is a concern, particularly for external audits where your client may not want their name disclosed publicly, you can note that the name is withheld for confidentiality reasons and instead describe the industry sector and approximate size of the organisation. Most schemes accept this, but check the specific requirements of your scheme before assuming it applies.
Date and Duration
Record the date or date range of the audit, and the total number of audit days. Be precise here. If you spent two full days on site plus half a day preparing the audit report, record it accurately. Schemes typically count on-site audit days, not preparation time, but this varies. Read the scheme criteria carefully and apply it consistently.
Standard Audited Against
Note the standard and edition, for example ISO 9001:2015, ISO 14001:2015, or ISO 45001:2018. If you audited against multiple standards in a single integrated audit, list all of them. This is important for auditors building experience across more than one standard.
Your Role
This is critical. You need to specify whether you were the lead auditor, a team member, an observer, or a trainee. Most schemes only count audits where you had an active auditing role. Observer audits, where you watched but did not conduct interviews or gather evidence yourself, typically count as witness audit experience rather than full audit experience. Record your role honestly. Schemes do check, and misrepresenting your role is a serious professional integrity issue.
Industry or Sector
Note the industry the organisation operates in. This is relevant because some schemes and some certification bodies look for breadth of experience across different sectors. It also matters if you are applying for sector-specific certification pathways.
Scope of the Audit
Briefly describe what the audit covered. For a certification audit, this might be the full scope of the management system. For an internal audit, it might be specific clauses or processes. A sentence or two is sufficient. This gives the assessor context for the type of audit you conducted.
Name and Contact Details of a Verifier
Some schemes require that at least some of your audit log entries can be verified by a third party. This might be the audit client, a senior auditor who supervised you, or the lead auditor on the team. Record the name and contact details of someone who can confirm your participation. You do not need to ask them to sign anything at this stage, but having the contact information ready means you can respond quickly if your scheme asks for verification.
Internal Audits vs External Audits: What Counts?
This is one of the most common questions from auditors building their logs. The short answer is that both internal and external audits can count, but the weighting and requirements differ between schemes.
Exemplar Global generally accepts both internal and external audits, but requires a proportion of your experience to come from audits of organisations other than your own employer. IRCA has similar distinctions. The intent is to ensure that certified auditors have experience beyond just auditing their own workplace.
For auditors who are primarily internal auditors, this means you may need to actively seek opportunities to conduct external audits, whether as part of a supplier audit programme, as a volunteer auditor for a professional body, or by working alongside a certification body as a trainee or team member. Building this external experience is one of the reasons many internal auditors pursue lead auditor training early in their careers.
If you are unsure where your current experience sits on the path to certification, the article on ISO Auditor Career Path: From Internal Auditor to Lead Auditor provides a practical overview of how internal and external experience builds over time.
Witness Audits and How to Record Them
A witness audit is an audit where an assessor or senior auditor observes your performance as an auditor. Witness audits serve a specific function in personnel certification schemes. They provide evidence that you can actually conduct an audit competently, not just that you have accumulated the required number of audit days.
When recording a witness audit in your log, note that it was a witness audit, identify the assessor or observer who witnessed your performance, and record the outcome if one was provided. Some schemes require a formal witness audit report or competency assessment to accompany the log entry.
If you are working towards Exemplar Global certification, witness audits are a formal part of the pathway for certain grades. Make sure you understand whether your scheme requires a witness audit and at what point in the process it needs to occur.
How to Format Your Audit Log
There is no single mandated format for an audit log, but a well-organised spreadsheet or table works well for most auditors. Structure it so that each row represents a single audit, and each column captures one of the data fields described above. This makes it easy to filter, sort, and summarise your experience when you need to demonstrate that you meet the criteria for a particular grade or certification.
Some auditors maintain their log in a simple word processing document, which works fine if you are disciplined about keeping it consistent. The risk with an unstructured format is that entries become inconsistent over time, making it harder to extract the summary data that certification applications typically require.
Keep a running summary at the top or bottom of your log that totals your audit days by standard. For example, a summary row showing your total ISO 9001 audit days, total ISO 14001 audit days, and total number of complete audits conducted as lead auditor makes it much easier to check your progress against scheme requirements and to complete certification applications accurately.
Common Mistakes Auditors Make With Their Audit Logs
After reviewing many audit logs over the years, the same mistakes come up repeatedly. Avoiding these will save you time and frustration when you apply for certification.
Starting Too Late
The most common mistake is not keeping a log at all until you decide to apply for certification. At that point, you are trying to reconstruct years of audit experience from memory, calendar entries, and old emails. Some of that experience may be impossible to verify, and some details will simply be wrong. Start your log from the first audit you conduct, even if certification feels like a distant goal.
Recording Days Inaccurately
Auditors sometimes record the total duration of an audit engagement rather than their own participation. If a three-day audit was conducted by a team of two and you were only present for two of those days, record two days, not three. Schemes assess your personal experience, not the total size of the audit.
Vague Role Descriptions
Writing “team member” for every audit tells the assessor very little. Be specific. Did you conduct interviews independently? Did you lead specific process audits? Did you draft the nonconformity reports? The more specific you are, the more clearly your developing competence comes through.
Omitting Internal Audits
Some auditors assume that only certification body audits count and do not bother recording their internal audit experience. This is a mistake. Internal audits absolutely count toward most scheme requirements, and they may represent a significant portion of your total audit experience, particularly early in your career.
Not Keeping Verifier Contact Details
You may not need to provide verification for every entry, but if you cannot verify an entry when asked, the scheme may not accept it. Keep a record of who can confirm your participation for each audit. A simple name and email address is usually sufficient.
Exemplar Global Recognised Training ProviderRTP No. 310970Maintaining Your Log Over Time
Your audit log is not a document you complete once and file away. It is a living record of your professional experience that should be updated after every audit you conduct. Build the habit of updating your log within a week of completing each audit, while the details are still fresh. Waiting months or years means you will forget specifics that matter, such as the exact duration of your involvement or the name of the lead auditor who supervised you.
As you progress in your career, your log also becomes a useful tool for your own professional development. Reviewing it periodically helps you identify gaps in your experience. If all your audits are in the same industry, for example, you might deliberately seek opportunities in other sectors. If all your experience is as a team member, you might look for opportunities to take on the lead auditor role.
For auditors maintaining continuing professional development requirements, the audit log also feeds into your CPD records. Conducting audits is itself a recognised CPD activity under most schemes.
When You Apply for Certification
When you submit your certification application, your audit log is one of the primary documents the assessor will review. Present it clearly and make sure it is consistent with any other documentation you submit, such as your training certificates, employment history, or referee statements.
If your log shows gaps or inconsistencies, an assessor may ask for clarification or additional evidence. Respond promptly and honestly. If you genuinely do not have enough experience to meet the requirements for a particular grade, it is better to know that before you apply and continue building your log rather than submitting an application that will be declined.
For auditors who have completed a lead auditor course and are now building the experience needed for full certification, the path forward is straightforward. Keep conducting audits, keep updating your log, and keep it accurate. The certification will follow.
If you are just starting out and want to understand the full pathway from training to certification, How to Become an ISO Internal Auditor: A Step by Step Guide covers the foundational steps in detail. For those ready to take the next step, the ISO Lead Auditor vs Internal Auditor: Which Course Do You Need article will help you decide where to invest your training effort next.
At Audit Workshop, our Lead Auditor and Internal Auditor courses are delivered by Dilawar Laghari, a certified lead auditor with over 14 years of compliance experience and more than 500 external ISO certification audits across Australia, the Middle East, and South Asia. Our training is built around real audit practice, which means participants come away understanding not just what to do, but how to do it in the field. If you are building your audit experience and working towards certification, our courses give you the practical foundation to make that log count.
