For laboratories working towards accreditation
You are on spreadsheets, the assessment is coming, and the evidence does not exist yet.
What you are actually worried about
Three fears, named plainly.
Everybody who has run an accreditation project has the same three. The software exists because of them.
One
Collecting non-conformances you cannot close
A finding against ISO/IEC 17025 §6.2 is not fixed by a training certificate. It is fixed by a competence record that says who is authorised for which method, on what evidence, from when — and by every certificate since having been signed by somebody on that record. On a spreadsheet, that is a week of reconstruction. The finding stays open while you do it.
Two
“Show me every certificate affected by this master.”
An assessor asks it because ISO/IEC 17025 §6.5 requires the answer to exist. When a reference standard comes back out of tolerance, every result that used it since its last good calibration is in question. Most laboratories cannot list them. They know it, and they hope the question is not asked.
Three
Choosing a vendor that disappears with the records
ISO/IEC 17025 §8.4 makes you responsible for retaining records, not your supplier. A system that holds eight years of certificates and stops answering is a finding against you. The question to ask any vendor is what you get back, in what form, and whether verification keeps working after you leave.
What the software does about each
The mechanism, by name.
Not a feature list. The specific thing that makes each fear stop being one.
How does it keep a signatory from signing outside their competence?
A certificate can be issued only by an authorised signatory holding a current competence record for that method. Not a warning — a refusal, enforced by the database rather than by the screen. The competence register is therefore always complete for the work that was signed, because nothing could be signed without it. That is what closes the finding under ISO/IEC 17025 §6.2.6.
How does it answer the reference standard question?
A calibration run cannot use a reference standard whose own calibration has lapsed. Hard block. And because every run records which masters it used, the reverse question — which certificates depend on this master — is a query, not a reconstruction. The recall engine runs it when a master comes back out of tolerance and lists the affected certificates and customers. That is ISO/IEC 17025 §7.10, answered before the assessor asks.
How does it stop a pass/fail statement with no basis?
ISO/IEC 17025 §7.8.6 requires a documented decision rule and its statement on the certificate. The software refuses a statement of conformity without one. You choose — simple acceptance or guard banding, ILAC-G8 by name — and the choice is printed. The engine that applies it is the same code as the free guard-band calculator on this site.
Where do the thirteen registers come from?
Nonconforming work, complaints, corrective actions, document control, competence, validity of results, risks, internal audits, management review, external providers, customer feedback, interlaboratory comparison, accreditation scope. None is a form you fill in on a Friday. Each is written by the work: a complaint is a record the moment a customer raises one, a nonconformance the moment a result fails review. The registers are complete because they are not separate from the job.
What does it refuse to invent?
A master's calibration date. Who is competent to sign. Whether you are registered for GST. An approved procedure. Your decision rule. Six facts only the laboratory can supply, and the readiness screen reports which are still missing from the records rather than offering a box to tick. A system that defaults any of them is a system that writes your assessment findings for you.
What happens on the day?
The accreditation assessment pack is generated from the records: clause by clause, the evidence that exists and the gaps that do not, dated and attributed. It is what a consultant compiles by hand for a fee that starts at four figures and ends at five. Here it is a document the system produces because the records are already in the shape the clauses ask for.
Proof
Verify a certificate yourself.
A real certificate, issued by the demonstration laboratory, checkable by anybody with the link. It proves the product exists and works in one click, which matters when the vendor is somebody you have never heard of.
Every certificate carries a random verification token — never a sequential number, which would let anyone enumerate every certificate ever issued — and verification stays public whatever happens to the laboratory's subscription.
What it costs, in the right column
A line item inside the accreditation budget.
A first accreditation is a project measured in tens of thousands of dollars once the application fee, assessment days, a consultant and your own months are counted. The software belongs in that column, not beside a free spreadsheet.
$549.00
a month on the Laboratory plan, ex GST. 3 people and 500 instruments included.
$6,588
a year. Against the cost of the assessment itself, a line; against a spreadsheet, a purchase. Choose the right comparison.
$4,950.00
the accreditation assessment pack, one-off. Credited in full for the six Foundation laboratories.
Every clause the system supports is on every plan. A compliance feature that consults the price list is not a compliance feature. See pricing for the metered lines and the estimator.
The questions people ask before they start
- What happens to my records if CalibraWorks stops trading?
- Every record is yours and exportable at any time, as a complete archive of every table that carries your laboratory's name — and a battery in the build refuses a release in which a new table is missing from that export. Certificates are stored in an immutable bucket with their hash recorded, and public verification is never switched off for non-payment. The agreement says the same in writing. Read the detail on the data ownership page.
- Will this make us accredited?
- No. Accreditation is granted by an accreditation body assessing your laboratory. The software makes the evidence exist as a by-product of the work and refuses the cases an assessor would refuse — an expired master, an unauthorised signatory, a conformity statement with no decision rule. What the assessor sees is your laboratory; what the software does is make sure the records are there when they look.
- We have eight years of certificates in Word and Excel. Do they have to be re-entered?
- No. Legacy documents are imported with their original identifiers kept searchable, and a certificate issued under the old system stays a record of what it said. The assessment does not need your history rebuilt; it needs the evidence for the work you do from now on to be complete.
- Does it understand NATA, GST and Australian standards, or is it a US product with the spelling changed?
- It was built inside a Sydney laboratory for a NATA assessment. Invoices follow the ATO's tax invoice rules and the GST question is refused rather than defaulted. AS 2193 grading, AS/NZS 3760 inspection intervals and Australian decision-rule practice under ILAC-G8 are in the engine, not in a settings page.
- Can one person be the whole laboratory?
- Yes, with one honest limit. ISO/IEC 17025 forbids a signatory assessing their own competence, so a laboratory of one names an external assessor with their organisation. The software records that route rather than pretending it does not exist. Everything else — reference standards, procedures, the decision rule — a sole practitioner can hold alone.
- What does the accreditation assessment pack actually contain?
- A clause-by-clause dossier assembled from your own records: for each clause the system supports, the evidence that exists, dated and attributed, and the gaps that do not. It is the document you would otherwise pay a consultant to compile by hand, and it is generated from the records rather than written about them.
Sources: ISO/IEC 17025:2017 as published by Standards Australia; NATA's accreditation criteria and fee schedule at nata.com.au; ILAC-G8:09/2019 at ilac.org.
Start with the readiness screen.
Thirty days, no card. The first thing you will see is the list of what your laboratory has not yet told the software — which is also the list an assessor would start from.