The 2019 release of Fountain & Associates’ AvAudit Safety Management software now incorporates importing and exporting data in the new International Standard for Business Aircraft Operations (IS-BAO) 2018 V1.0 spreadsheet format. Corporate flight departments, auditors and service providers conducting internal or external safety management system (SMS) audits can now import data from an IS-BAO 2018 or other Microsoft Excel spreadsheet from a previous audit into the AvAudit software. Audit reports and findings can also be exported in PDF form or to the IS-BAO 2018-compliant spreadsheet.

“Our AvAudit software has been completely revamped to accommodate the new IS-BAO 2018 spreadsheet format,” said Philip J. Fountain, founder of Fountain & Associates and the main architect behind the AvAudit software. “AvAudit also provides a way to find the individual IS-BAO requirements that have been added, changed or removed since the last IS-BAO release. These features can save auditors and operators one to two weeks of work per audit.”

Launched in 2015, the cloud-based AvAudit software combines International Business Aircraft Council (IBAC) standards with IS-BAO safety audit requirements, related regulations, the IS-BAO generic company operations manual (GCOM), and audit findings comment areas to provide a comprehensive SMS documentation, audit, and training tool.

Gulfstream captain and SMS auditor Amanda Ferraro of Beloit, Wisconsin, has been conducting SMS audits of corporate flight departments with AvAudit software since 2017 and agrees that time savings is the software’s key differentiator.

“From the auditor’s perspective, being able to import an operator’s cross references from either their AvAudit file or the IS-BAO spreadsheet saves hours and hours of work,” said Ferraro. “Auditors can also input their own audit questions into an AvAudit auditor base record, send that record to the operator, and then the operator can be prepared for the questions that will be asked during the audit. That’s a huge benefit for operators—it sets the stage for the audit.”   

AvAudit Safety Management software features include:

  • Modularized access to the current IS-BAO requirements plus related reference and guidance documents
  • One-touch toggle showing all relevant standards or only new or changed requirements since last protocol cycle
  • Ability to incorporate and export operator-specific cross-references to their own company operations manual
  • Options to create audit questions for various company roles (president, chief pilot, director of maintenance, etc.)
  • Areas to enter comments on findings and analysis for each requirement identical to the IS-BAO spreadsheet but in a more user-friendly format
  • Automated aggregation of findings and PDF or IS-BAO spreadsheet report generation

Available for Windows 10, Mac OS X and iOS (iPad) platforms, the AvAudit software saves each customer’s data securely on a cloud-based server, allowing access to the data from laptops, iPads and desktop computers. All user information can be carried forward to the next protocol cycle, reducing the time it takes to conduct future audits. Tabbed content and “copy and paste” features also save development, maintenance and auditing time. When an audit is complete, the software checks all report documents and generates an IS-BAO-compliant report with one click. For more information or to schedule a demo of the software, email demo@avaudit.aero or visit avaudit.aero.