There is a version of EQA preparation that most internal audit functions know well. It starts somewhere between six and twelve months before the assessment is scheduled, involves a significant amount of documentation review, gap analysis, and remediation work, and produces a function that looks prepared on paper — even if the underlying operations have not meaningfully changed.
That version of EQA readiness is expensive, stressful, and largely avoidable.
The Difference Between Prepared and Scrambling
Audit functions that consistently achieve strong external quality assessment results are not necessarily larger, better-resourced, or more sophisticated than those that struggle. The difference is almost always operational: they have been running their function in a way that aligns with IIA standards as a matter of course, not as a response to an upcoming assessment.
That means their audit charter is current and has been reviewed by the audit committee within the past year. Their risk assessment process is documented and consistently applied. Their engagement files are complete and organized in a way that supports review. Their staff can articulate the methodology they follow because they actually follow it.
None of these things require a special project. They are the result of building and maintaining a structured, disciplined audit function over time.
What a Gap Assessment Actually Reveals
One of the most useful things an audit function can do in advance of an EQA — ideally two to three years out, not two to three months — is conduct a structured gap assessment against the current IIA standards.
A gap assessment is not a self-congratulatory review of what the function does well. It is a systematic comparison of current practices against the requirements and expectations of the standards, designed to surface the areas where conformance is partial or absent.
The findings from a gap assessment conducted with adequate lead time can be addressed through normal operations — by updating methodology documentation, adjusting engagement planning processes, or building supervisory review practices into the audit cycle. The same findings surfaced six weeks before an EQA become a crisis management exercise.
The Role of QAIP in EQA Readiness
A functioning Quality Assurance Improvement Program is the most direct path to sustained EQA readiness. When the QAIP includes ongoing monitoring of engagement quality, periodic self-assessments against IIA standards, and a mechanism for tracking and addressing identified gaps, the audit function is continuously preparing for an external quality assessment — even when one is not on the immediate horizon.
The 2025 IIA Global Internal Audit Standards reinforce this. The QAIP is not a document. It is a system. And systems that are actively used produce different results than systems that exist only in policy.
When to Start
If your function has not had an external quality assessment in the past three years, or if your last EQA identified findings that have not been fully addressed, now is a reasonable time to evaluate where you stand.
LH Consulting Group provides EQA readiness support for internal audit functions that want an honest assessment of their current state and a clear path to closing gaps — without the scramble that comes from waiting too long. We also conduct full external quality assessments for functions that are ready to validate their conformance with IIA standards.