Preventive maintenance carried out but no records kept

I have a huge problem.  I became the QA manager just a few months ago at a baking facility.  We are SQF certified and have an audit coming up.  We have a preventive maintenance program in place.  The problem is that our previous maintenance men didnt fill out the relevant forms to show they they did the work.  The few forms i did have filled out are missing.  I know the work has been done.  Everyone thought everyone else was keeping records and i just found all of this out while i was doing a self audit.  The previous person that was keeping track of things didnt have an digital files of record keeping.  I have redone the system so the forms can be done on there phone, take pictures of work performed, sign etc and when they send it it will go to my email.  So no more excuses for why the forms werent filled out.  So going forward I can digitally track everything they are doing.  How do i recap past maintenance record keeping?

I would document in writing what has happened and what corrective actions you put into place.

Next, document the training that was done on this situation.

Keep the above in your file - you may need it at your audit.

Next, you may know the work was done, but regardless with no record to prove it the Auditor will not accept verbal, he/she might note it, but having been an SQF Auditor I doubt it.

My suggest is your maintenance team gets to work right now in inspecting and reviewing each item on the checklist - as in do the PM right now and document everything like it should have been done.

If I were the Auditor and I got the explanation as to why things were not being done, but saw in documentation that you pro-actively went about correcting the situation by taking big actions it would not be a gig.

CORRECTIVE ACTION! You must show the auditor that you detected the NC and opened a CAPA for it! 

Definitely document this as a NC for the internal audit and follow CAPA.