Can Data Cutoff Dates Differ for Audits vs. Internal Analysis?

hi all, 

Can the cutoff period for data used in analysis such as food safety objective, customer survey, pest control analysis;  and record keeping be different from cutoff period used for audit purposes, or must they be the same? 

IMHO they must be the same.  They're all part of my GFSI system, so.......

There's no reason they need to be the same HOWEVER you may be making your audit more difficult as a result

If your written programs are clear and you feel confident explaining the difference, there is no real reason why not

I don't have a hard cut off for the data I download from our PCO or certified lab, and as far as the SOP is concerned for those fields the COA's and record of the site visit are the official record that must be maintained.  The trending/graphing based on it goes into monthly and annual reports that we also maintain as an official record subject to our SOP.  But the raw downloaded data is secondary to those official records.

That said, I had been the corporate QA data guy in my current company for just over 3 years (took on a new role in October last year).  In training my replacement, I had kept all of our info from 2022.  Came in handy as my replacement was tasked with performing a 3-year review to present to a board of directors whom our CEO answers to.  So while there was no hard requirement for me to keep it, I find saving the old files isn't too big of a task and can pay off when an obscure request comes in.

This is because audit date arranged by certification body, doesn't aligned with our doc cut off month 

IMHO they must be the same.  They're all part of my GFSI system, so.......