1.  Keep the focus on the Standard. Eliminate excessive accreditation fees and administrative rules. Burdensome, non-value add rules translate to the customer in the form of additional audit cost and institutionalized administrative burden, and fees.

Principles of Accreditation We believe in the following six basic principles: 

National Accreditation Services

4.  Auditor competence is critical to a positive, successful audit. The greatest risk to proper implementation and maintenance of an ISO Standard is an auditor who lacks competency in industry, ISO requirements, and audit methodology. We place high value on auditor competency requirements.

2.  The audit should be a positive, structured process that provides value to the customer.  There is no conflict between an audit that both promotes and enforces that requirements be met, but also serves in an advisory capacity which is aligned with the improvement principles of all ISO management system standards.​​

​​3.  The auditor and client relationship should be based on trust, transparency and value. Auditor and Client relationships based on trust are critical to a successful management system audit. By eliminating the gamesmanship of an audit, real value can be recognized from the Standard and from the auditor knowledge, experience and skill. Assessments should not be viewed as trivial, non-value add exercises in documentation review. Audits should be effective reviews of a management system that identify systemic areas for improvement, and identify and eliminate systemic conformance gaps against the Standards.

6.  NAS Rules enforcement. NAS enforces the Registrar Rules for Management Systems Auditing and Certification through audits at initial accreditation (on-site) and annually (remote site), and then on-site every 5 years. 

​5.  The audit process must maintain integrity and credibility. A Registrar has a responsibility to certify only those organizations that demonstrate through objective evidence that the requirements, spirit and intent of the Standard are met. NAS member Certification Bodies are expected to encourage their auditors to not only strictly uphold the requirements of the Standard, but also help move the organization into a state of conformance. Until conformance with the Standards requirements are fully met, Certificates of Registration with the NAS logo must not be used. ​​