How to Prepare for a Compliance Training Audit

Whether it is an internal review or an external regulatory audit, being asked to prove your compliance training records can be stressful. But an audit is just a test of your documentation. If your records are organized, passing is straightforward.

1. Understand what the auditor actually wants

Auditors are not trying to evaluate whether your training was emotionally moving. They are trying to verify that you fulfilled a stated obligation. They typically want to see:

The Roster: A definitive list of who was required to take the training during the audit period.
The Evidence: The timestamped completion record or signed acknowledgment for each person on that roster.
The Content: A copy of the actual course or policy document the employees consumed.

If you can produce those three things quickly and without discrepancies, the audit will go smoothly.

2. Pull your records early

Do not wait until the auditor is on a Zoom call with you to try and remember how your LMS reporting works. As soon as you know the scope of the audit (e.g., "All harassment training records for calendar year 2024"), generate the reports.

Export the data to a clean spreadsheet. You should have one row per employee, showing their name, the course title, and their completion date.

3. Document the gaps

You will almost certainly find gaps. Employees go on parental leave, people quit before finishing their training, or someone was simply missed in the initial assignment.

Auditors expect some gaps — 100% compliance in a large organization is rare. What they want to see is that you know about the gaps and have a documented reason or remediation plan for them.

Create a supplemental list explaining why specific people are missing from the completion report:

"Jane Doe: On Family Medical Leave from Oct 1 to present."
"John Smith: Terminated prior to training deadline (Oct 15)."
"Sarah Lee: Currently overdue; manager escalated on Jan 10."

4. Prepare the content artifacts

The auditor may ask to see the material that was taught. Have a PDF copy of your policies, and ideally a PDF export or accessible staging link for any SCORM courses you used.

If you updated your policy mid-year, make sure you know which employees signed the old version and which signed the new version.

5. How you present the data matters

Auditors love confidence and organization. If you hand them a clean, system-generated CSV report and a neat folder of certificates, they will spend less time interrogating your processes.

Conversely, if you hand them a messy, manually-typed Excel file with missing dates and mispelled names, they will dig deeper into everything you do. The appearance of control is almost as important as the control itself.

Be ready for your next audit
Ethica maintains a permanent, un-editable audit log of every training completion and policy signature. When the auditor calls, you can export your entire org's history in two clicks. Start your free trial.