Can the quality personnel from our sister facility conduct a remote internal audit?

Hoping someone can give us some guidance on this one.

We are looking to complete our annual internal audit as per SQF requirements. We are located in Canada and have a sister facility in the US. Normal procedure for our internal audits is for quality personnel from each facility to go to the other to complete the internal audit, as we are all appropriately trained. However, due to current border restrictions and requirements to self-isolate for 14 days upon arrival into Canada, this is not feasible at this time.

Would we be able to have the quality personnel from our sister facility conduct a remote internal audit?

TIA!

Internal Auditing requires training in Internal Auditing Procedures.  I had a point taken for not being officially trained (my trained employee quit just before internal audit schedule).  

It would be better to do it untrained than to skip the whole thing obviously.

The online courses only take a few hours to complete.  Can you rush a training for someone on site, and then help guide them over the phone?  

Alternatively, since you have personnel there that is trained, why not just have them internal audit their own facility?  Try to separate out the people responsible for various parts so they don't audit their own work?  

We are a small operation and there is not enough people who are far enough removed from production to cover the entire audit, which is why we have been relying on our sister facility to do this. But it's not feasible as they would be in self-isolation for 14 days when they arrive here in Canada, and they would also be in self-isolation for 14 days when they go back to the US, which is too much time for them to be away from their own facility.

We are minimizing visitor/contractor access to our facility due to COVID-19, as well we are trying to save money where possible (in response to decline in business due to COVID-19), so we were hoping to avoid having to bring a 3rd party auditor on site to conduct the internal audit for us this year.

Yea I mean I took my in house graphics designer / fundraising office assistant and trained them online, just took a few hours.  I know it is not very thorough, and she was rather confused while going through everything, but it has been accepted come audit time because she had the official training and found a few things that could use improving.  If you are a small company you should be able to find someone somewhat competent and say sorry, this is part of your job now.  

Are  you talking about the internal management review?

If so, you folks can do that yourself without the need for even the other facility doing it remotely.

No, the internal audit, as per 2.5.5.1

No, the internal audit, as per 2.5.5.1

You can do this internally or have your sister facility do it remotely - or combo thereof. - In fact I think a combo would be best.

Thank you for the combo suggestion! I think that's what we will do :)