How Certification Works

From your first record to a listing on the Auditor Register, and what it takes to stay there. Nine steps, all managed online from your dashboard, each one shown as it is reached.

1. Create your account and verify your identity

Register on the platform and complete your profile. Your eight-digit Member ID is issued at once and becomes your Register ID when you are certified. Before your first certification we verify your identity (Dashboard › Verification): QA Assessor confirms who you are and records the method used. Every later step, including the structured interview, rests on that verified identity.

2. Complete an auditor course

Each grade has a training requirement: a Foundation, Internal Auditor or Lead Auditor course for the scheme, at the level the grade needs (Foundation or above for Associate Auditor; Internal Auditor or Lead Auditor for Internal Auditor; Lead Auditor for Auditor, Lead Auditor and Principal Auditor). Courses from QA Assessor are added to your Training and Qualifications when you complete them. Courses from an Approved Training Provider are confirmed with the provider directly, and a course from any other provider counts once you upload the certificate and we confirm it. Training with QA Assessor is not a condition of certification and gives no advantage in the assessment of your application.

3. Log your audits and work experience

Every audit you take part in goes in your Audit Log: the standard and its edition, dates, audit type (internal, supplier or customer, certification), your role (team member, sole auditor or team leader), the scope, total days, days on site or in live remote sessions, the organisation and what was covered, and the name of a person who can confirm it. Attach evidence where you have it. Work experience goes in Work Experience: employer, role, dates, duties and the discipline (Auditor, Lead Auditor and Principal Auditor need four years, two of them in the discipline of the scheme). For Auditor and above, attach a redacted audit plan, checklist or report you produced to one of the audits you will count and flag it as your work sample: it is scored in the assessment. Only audits carried out after your qualifying course and within the last five years count towards a grade (fifteen years for Principal Auditor). When a standard has been revised, audits against the previous edition count until the end of its transition period.

4. Records verified

A QA Assessor reviewer checks each record against its evidence and may contact the provider, employer or verifier you named, normally within five working days of the evidence being received. Verified records are marked and locked: you cannot edit or remove them, and you use Request a correction if something is wrong. A record that cannot be verified is returned with the reason so that you can correct it and resubmit. Only verified records count towards a grade.

5. Apply, declare and pay

From My Certification choose the scheme and see every grade with a live check of your verified records against its requirements: courses, work experience, number of audits, audit days, on-site days, audits led. Choose the grade, read the itemised fees (the US $16 scheme application fee, charged once per scheme and not again if you have already paid it for that scheme, plus the first annual fee for the grade, US $19 to US $99) and accept the versioned declaration (that your records are true, that we may contact the people you named, and that you will keep to the Code of Conduct). Nothing is paid at this step: QA Assessor first verifies your eligibility; once it is confirmed you are asked to pay the fees together, in one payment, and assessment starts when they are received. Your application reference (APP-…) shows its stage in your dashboard; every change of stage is emailed to you and shown in your dashboard.

6. Prerequisite review and assessment

Prerequisite review. A Certification Manager or Profile Assessor confirms your verified identity, the declaration and every requirement of the grade against your verified records. If something is missing the application returns to you as Prerequisites not met: records requested, with the reasons; add the records and ask for another look. When everything is in place the assessment is authorised and the records it rests on are frozen.

Assessor assigned. An assessor with recorded competence for the scheme is assigned. The platform refuses anyone who trained you, verified your records or authorised your case, and the assessor declares that they have no conflict of interest before the assessment opens.

Assessment. The assessor scores each criterion of the published rubric (0 not demonstrated, 1 partly, 2 demonstrated) from your frozen records and evidence, your work sample and, for Lead Auditor and Principal Auditor (and a sample of Auditor applications), a structured interview: five fixed questions about your own audits, online, about 45 minutes, recorded with your consent after a live identity check. They may ask for more information (stage More information requested; 30 days to respond) or contact your verifiers. When the assessment is submitted it is locked, and its outcome (competent, borderline or not competent) is computed from the scores; no software judgement or artificial intelligence scores your evidence.

7. Decision

The certification decision is made by a Certification Manager who did not assess, verify or train you, on the locked assessment and the evidence. The platform allows the decision only when every condition of the process is met (prerequisites authorised, assessment locked, interview evaluated where required, no conflict declared, no open complaint or appeal about the case, nothing changed since the lock) and records the reasons. A borderline outcome goes back to the assessor. Most decisions are issued within 15 working days of the prerequisite review, not counting time waiting for you or for an interview slot you asked to move. If the application is approved you are certified. If it is not, you receive the reasons, the first annual fee is refunded, and you may add records and apply again at any time or appeal within 30 calendar days under the Complaints and Appeals Policy.

8. Listed on the Auditor Register

Approved auditors receive a certificate number formed of their Register ID and the scheme code (for example 93506121-QMS), a certificate for the scheme stating the scope and the three-year certification period, and a digital auditor card, each carrying a verification link and QR code, and are listed on the public Auditor Register. You control what the register shows beyond your name, Register ID, scheme, grade, certificate number, dates and status.

9. Keep it current

• Annual renewal. Pay the annual fee for your grade before your annual renewal date (each anniversary of your issue date) to stay listed. Nothing is taken automatically; we remind you 90 and 30 days before. Paying renews your registration to the next anniversary, never beyond your recertification due date. A registration not renewed by its annual renewal date lapses at 00:00 on that date until it is renewed; after the recertification due date only recertification restores it.
• CPD. Complete at least three CPD records in every full calendar year of your certification period in your CPD Log, each one a Plan, Do, Check, Act cycle verified by QA Assessor. See the CPD Guidance.
• Recertification every three years. Confirm from your dashboard that you have kept auditing and completed your CPD records. The assessor checks the records, with a structured interview where the grade requires it, and a decision maker who did not assess confirms the outcome.
• Regrade. When your experience meets a higher grade, apply to regrade for a US $25 processing fee; the new grade is assessed in the same way. Your annual fee changes at the next renewal.
• Code of Conduct. Applies at all times; breaches may lead to suspension or withdrawal under the Suspension and Withdrawal Policy.

Timescales at a glance

Start an application Read the Applicant Handbook

QA Assessor certification processes are self-declared as aligned with ISO/IEC 17024:2026. QA Assessor is not accredited and makes no claim of accreditation.