How to read your own file before someone else does.
An audit conversation tends to start with what actually happens at your RTO, then move to how you can show it. This guide walks that path, so you can walk it first.
Start with what the Standards ask
The Standards for RTOs 2025 have three parts: the Outcome Standards, the Compliance Standards and the Credential Policy. The Outcome Standards are grouped into four quality areas: training and assessment, VET student support, VET workforce, and governance.
They describe outcomes more than documents. That matters when you prepare a file, because a well-written policy on its own shows very little. It says what you intend. It does not show what you did. Read the wording of the Standards yourself on ASQA’s Standards for RTOs page rather than relying on anyone’s summary, including this one.
The three things a question walks through
Most questions about your practice can be followed through three kinds of document.
- The policy says what you do and who does it.
- The record shows that you did it, for this learner, this unit or this person.
- The improvement shows what changed because of what you found.
Pick a real question and walk it. Where the walk stops, you have found the gap. It is far better to find it yourself. You can try this now with the audit trace on our home page.
A worked example: validation
Validation sits at Standard 1.5 of the Outcome Standards. Read that standard for its rules on who may validate and how often. Then try the walk.
The policy should name who validates, when, and how samples are chosen, in terms your own staff recognise. The record is a completed validation form showing the tools reviewed, the evidence looked at, the panel and the outcome, with a register that shows what has been validated and what comes next. The improvement is the part that is easiest to lose: a finding, an action, an owner, and the new version of the tool.
| Unit | Tool version | Panel | Finding | Action and owner | Closed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BSBWHS311 | 2.0 | Lead validator and an industry reviewer | Task 2 instructions did not state the conditions | Rewrite instructions. Assessment lead. | Version 2.1 issued |
| BSBXCM301 | 1.3 | Lead validator and a second assessor | Marking guide too thin on question 4 | Add benchmark answer. Assessment lead. | Open |
Four checks worth doing this month
Names
Does every form named in a procedure exist, under that name? A procedure that points to a form nobody can find tells a reader the procedure is not in use.
Versions
Can a new staff member tell which version is current? Put a version and date on every document, and take old versions out of circulation without destroying them.
Dates
Do the records fall in the order the procedure describes? Never backdate. A late record, honestly dated, can be explained. A backdated one cannot.
People
Can the person named in a procedure describe it in their own words? Are they still employed? Roles written in from a template are easy to spot.
What a purchased suite can and cannot do
A purchased suite saves drafting time and gives your documents one consistent structure. Because the files are in Microsoft Word, you can change all of it.
It cannot know your scope, your staff or your learners, and it cannot be evidence of what you do. A policy you have not adapted reads like one written for someone else. So check the roles, the form names and the delivery modes against reality, remove what does not apply, add what is missing, then record who approved it and when.
No purchase moves responsibility away from your RTO. That is why we will not promise you an audit outcome, and why you should be wary of anyone who does.
Check the sources
Use training.gov.au for the current status of every code you deliver, and ASQA for the Standards and what the regulator publishes about them. If you would like to talk about a compliance review, ask CAQA.