GRC - Internal Audit > Audit Preparation > Planning Audits > Defining Audit Properties
Defining Audit Properties
General characteristics 
General characteristics of an audit are:
• Name: audit name
• Code: you can assign a code to the audit
• Category of the audit:
• "Compliance"
• "Efficiency"
*A widget enables to illustrate breakdown between compliance audits and efficiency audits. See Audit breakdown by category.
• Status: this attribute is defined automatically and modified at workflow transitions.
• Included in the initial Plan: this is defined automatically. It corresponds to the audit plan status at the time the audit is created. It indicates whether the audit was present at audit plan creation, or whether it was added later.
• Follow-up audit : this field is checked automatically in the case of follow-up audits (not changeable). When it is checked, it is followed by the Followed Audit Year.
*For further details, see Creating follow-up audits.
• Lead Auditor: name of lead auditor
• Main Auditee: you can select a manager from the list of auditees attached to the audit.
• Objective of the audit
Justification and workload 
In this section you can enter the following attributes:
• Justification of the audit
• Origin: follow-up, ad-hoc, recurrent, etc.
• Priority: priorities can be specified for audits. You can select audits to be integrated in the audit plan based on this priority criterion.
• Estimated Duration (days).
• Estimated Resources (numbers)
• Estimated Workload
*The following characteristics are automatically calculated:
• Effective Workload (Hours): calculated from the effective workload defined on time sheets or on activities if no time sheet has been entered.
• Effective Resources
Milestones 
In the Milestones section, you can indicate a Planned Begin Date and a Planned End Date.
*If you enter dates that do not agree with those of the audit plan, an error message appears.
*You can choose to enter milestones at a later stage.
Responsibilities 
In the Responsibilities section, you can specify audit participants:
• Auditors in Audit See Assigning Auditors to Audits.
• Auditees: persons audited, who can be e-mail recipients or recommendation owners.
• Other participants in Audit: any other persons in the audit.
Skills 
You can specify theskills required from auditors to execute the audit.
To define skills required for the audit:
*In the audit Skills section, click Connect to connect an existing skill.
*The audit director cannot create new skills.
When assigning auditors to an audit, you will be able to compare skills of auditors and skills required for the audit. For more details on the report providing this information, see Assigning an auditor to an audit.
Summary 
At Conclusion of the completed audit, you can indicate:
• Key Strengths
• Key Weaknesses
• Evaluation: good overall level, can be improved, etc.
*The evaluation of the audit is displayed in the audit dashboard. See Viewing an Audit Dashboard.