Compliance giving you a headache?

Meeting all your compliance deadlines alongside daily work processes can be the stuff of nightmares - the extra task(s) you just don’t have time for but cannot ignore. It just has to fit somewhere.

Even for smaller organisations, having to manage record retention schedules, information request fulfilment and / or documentation matching for approvals can become a fulltime job - it is not the size of the organisation that dictates the workload but rather the volume of content and data that organisation generates.

So how do you alleviate that pressure? What can be prescribed for your compliance headache?

Automated retention policies

Simply ensuring your organisation is no longer storing unnecessary data, especially anything that could lead to a financial penalty from regulators, can be a full time role as data volume increases over time.

Take one document management system, add a dose of document types (categories) and apply a retention policy based on type, date, age, status or indeed any definable variable against the content. Can be applied with additional workflow integration to perform wider criteria checks.

In a really simple example (and this is not necessarily optimal, it is more designed to demonstrate the principle) - a client signs a contract which is stored within your document management repository as a PDF. The contract is for an annual service renewal and will auto-renew on the anniversary date unless cancelled by the client. The document type ‘contract’ is stored not only with a ‘valid date’ index but also a cancelled flag which initially is NULL (empty). Every weekend an automated business process (workflow) task is scheduled to check for any contracts that have recently had the ‘cancelled’ flag updated. Any record that is found has a new date value (set 5 years in the future as an example) added to the index value ‘retained until’. A second workflow task is scheduled later in the weekend to check any document with a ‘retained until’ value - if that date value is equal to or less than today’s date, the document is deleted from the platform (or potentially exported to an archive).

Most modern document management systems (ImageView, DocuWare & Agilico Invu) include records management for simple use cases - such as setting a retention date when a document type is stored, however, workflow can allow greater complexity in how the rules are applied.

Information Request Fulfilment

Being able to confirm quickly and with absolute certainty what information or documentation regarding an individual is held by your organisation will not only avoid financial penalties from regulators but also ensure your organisation's reputation is protected.

Take one document management system (there is a theme here), add all client related documentation directly on receipt (whether scanned paper, email, form generated), apply a set of mandatory index criteria (such as client reference number) to the stored content and then ensure the original copy is removed from the source or legally destroyed. Can be then combined with a powerful search form that will instantly retrieve every client related document for review, export or removal (dependent on the request type).

Another simplified example - your organisation receives subscription requests via both online form and email. The online form (on submission) saves a PDF version of the data to the content repository before triggering a workflow for the remainder of the onboarding. When submitted through email, requestors use a downloadable word document and then attach it to their message. The receiving mail box is ‘watched’ by an automated email processor (such as PacSol IEP) and the attachment is added to the content repository (as a PDF) before again triggering the workflow. The original email is moved to an archive / to be deleted by the automation tool. The onboarding workflow generates further documentation which is emailed to the new subscriber - a copy of which is stored in the content repository. Any email correspondence received back is again handled by the automated email processor, storing a copy of the message and triggering a task process for response. 

Much later on, a former subscriber wants to know what information is still retained regarding their relationship with your organisation and wishes to ensure that any sensitive data is removed. At this point, the records manager knows with certainty that there is no data to be found in email (shared mailboxes / personnel etc) as the automation dealt with those copies, there are no paper copies to be located from storage or a filing cabinet and everything else was automatically archived into the content repository. With one search, the records manager can return a full list of content, know immediately what the content type is (due to the index) and review / export / set for deletion - whatever action is required.

Transactions, approvals and delay avoidance

The ability to respond in a timely fashion and ensure your organisation’s commitments to deadlines (payments, sign ups, deliveries etc) is essential in today’s connected society.  Expectations for service excellence are high and the ability to let the world know when it is not is within easy reach - your organisation's reputation is on the line every day.

Take one document management system with business process automation and task management functionality. Apply a set of rules to apply automated triggers based on incoming content, employee actions against the existing content or newly generated content sent out. Can be combined with integration functions (such as REST or Webhooks) to monitor data or receive updates from other related platforms.

Our final, simplified example - a supplier has strict 7 day payment terms following confirmed delivery of their products and missing the payment deadline (apart from being reputationally awkward) will incur a financial penalty - an additional 10% charge on the goods charges. Whilst your organisation has raised a PO for the order and the supplier has sent an order confirmation document back (both now stored in the content repository), your payment process requires three further actions - receipt of the invoice, a delivery confirmation from your warehouse and final payment approval from the Financial Director. The process could go something like:

1. The invoice arrives from the supplier in the accounts email and is picked up, indexed and stored automatically by the inbound email processor
2. The document management system has a trigger based on a new invoice from that supplier being stored and initiates a task for the warehouse manager to confirm that all goods listed under the PO / Invoice have been received
3. Having confirmed receipt of the goods (and uploaded a copy of the delivery note to the document management system via his mobile), the warehouse manager responds to the task with an affirmative
4. The workflow process now sets a new task against the invoice for director approval
5. The director receives notification of a waiting task, reviews the invoice, sees the related warehouse confirmation and can also view the original PO / order confirmation documents from the task to confirm everything is as agreed. 
6. The director approves the invoice for payment and a final task is sent to the payments team requesting a payment is made to the supplier by a certain date (this can be set using a rule based on the invoice date to ensure the penalty charge is avoided).

This one ‘approval’ process, from invoice receipt to payment authorisation, could complete in as little as 5 minutes, even without the director being in the office as approvals could be submitted via their mobile device. The process automation will ensure the right people have responded and if not, send reminders and / or escalate the task to others.

So, where in your organisation could a little automation and task management go a long way to easing your process pains?

Toby Gilbertson. Director of Operations at PacSol. July 2023

#pacsoluk #documentmanagement #businessprocessautomation #digitaltransformation