Questions we are asked before every engagement

No. Northbridge Accreditation Services is a certification coordination company. Certification decisions and certificates are issued by an authorized certification body, whose accreditation is stated on the certificate and in our public register.

Accreditation is the recognition of a certification body’s competence by a national accreditation body. Certification is the confirmation that an organization’s management system conforms to a standard. Your organization holds the certificate; the certification body holds the accreditation.

No, and you should be cautious of anyone who says they do. ISO standards are published by the International Organization for Standardization, a non-governmental body. Certification is carried out by accredited certification bodies. A certificate is not a government licence.

Read the certificate for the issuing body and its accreditation number, then check that number in the accreditation body’s public directory — for example ANAB, UKAS or IAF CertSearch. You can also enter the certificate number on our verification page.

Single-site organizations with partial documentation usually reach Stage 2 in eight to fourteen weeks. Multi-site operations, ISO 13485 and ISO 50001 tend to run longer because of the documentation and measurement requirements. We give you a dated plan at scoping.

Not credibly. The audit programme requires a Stage 1 review, a Stage 2 audit and a decision, and the standard requires internal audit and management review beforehand. Any provider promising a certificate in days is either not accredited for that scope or not auditing.

Audit days are calculated from your effective number of employees and the complexity of the scope, using the certification body’s accredited rules. A small single-site ISO 9001 client might need one Stage 1 day and two Stage 2 days; a larger multi-site ISO 27001 scope can require considerably more.

We prepare you for it: documentation, evidence packs, internal audit, management review and a pre-audit walkthrough. During the audit we coordinate logistics and help track findings. We do not answer questions on your behalf or sit in the audit as your representative.

The figures shown on each standard page are indicative starting prices for coordination and preparation support. The certification body’s audit fees, travel and any statutory testing are quoted separately and itemized. Final pricing depends on sites, employees, shifts and audit days.

Yes. Surveillance audits in years one and two, and a recertification audit in year three, are charged by the certification body. Budget for annual surveillance from the start rather than treating certification as a one-off purchase.

Coordination fees are refundable on a pro-rata basis before implementation work begins; certification body fees are subject to that body’s terms. The full terms are in our refund policy.

The client’s legal name and address, the standard and version, the certification scope, issue and expiry dates, the certificate number, the certification body and its accreditation details. Our register publishes a subset of this publicly: client name, number, standard, scope, issue date, expiry date and status.

Client addresses, contact details, audit reports, pricing and any commercially sensitive information. Verification pages are also excluded from search engine indexing so that individual records are not surfaced by name.

The register shows it as expired and the verification page states that it is no longer valid. The record stays visible so that a buyer who checks an old certificate gets an accurate answer rather than a “not found”.

Yes. Failure to complete surveillance, a serious nonconformity, misuse of the mark or a scope change can lead to suspension or withdrawal. The register is updated when the certification body records the decision.