Document Control

 

What is Document Control?

 

Document Control is the management of documents to a much higher degree of reliability for security, version, visibility, availability and, most importantly, with a controlled reliable audit trail.

 

Reasons to turn to document management solutions

 

More and more industries are falling under the influence of legislation that requires specific procedures for record keeping. Financial services companies need to be able to prove that information is unaltered to comply with the Financial Services Authority; medical practices have to prove that their records are safe from prying eyes to comply with the Department of Health. The legal industry also has specific requirements related to discovery, including full-text searching of massive amounts of documents.

 

For businesses in these more regulated industries, document management solutions are by far the best way to ensure compliance with strict security and record-keeping rules. It’s important to note that such systems only help your company become compliant, they don’t guarantee it. But, the right procedures and behaviours do. No matter how secure your electronic records are, if an employee prints sensitive information and takes it to lunch, you’re not in compliance.

 

Document management solutions are used in a broad spectrum of businesses. Human resources and accounting departments, traditional heavy users of paper files, are huge beneficiaries of document management.

 

ISO 9000/9001 certification efforts can also benefit from document management. Manufacturing and government are two sectors that pursue document management solutions for these broader regulatory reasons.

 

Any organization that wants to put more processes in place can benefit as well. Document management solutions are used to enforce naming conventions, ensure strict approval processes are followed, and generally add consistency to existing procedures.

 

Why do I need Document Control?

 

Cost savings - Lowered document production costs

 

One of the biggest hidden costs that paper-intensive businesses face is the time it takes to work with paper files. Assuming it takes a £10/hour employee five minutes to walk to a records room, locate a file, act on it, file it again, and return to their desk at just four files per day, that’s over 86 hours per year spent filing – around £860 in wages. At ten files per day, that rises to 216 hours per year – over five weeks’ time, or £2160 – and that’s only for one employee. A system that lets employees find and work with those documents without ever leaving their desks can instantly slash those costs.

 

Document management systems also eliminate the “lost document” cost – the time it takes to recreate a document that’s been destroyed or misplaced. Some suppliers estimate the cost of replacing each lost document at £150.

 

Additional cost savings come from the office space that can be freed by eliminating most paper records. With real estate costs at £10 to £80 or more per square foot in many major cities, converting records rooms into usable office space can save considerable amounts of money. In other cases, you may be able to eliminate warehousing costs for years of old records.

 

Security - Increase in Data Integrity

 

If you’re not taking data security seriously, you should be. Threats from outside (competition, identity thieves) and inside (disgruntled employees, employee theft) threaten the integrity and value of your most important information. CAB-i-NET can provide several layers of security:

 

• Multiple levels of password-protected access for groups and individuals.

• Audit trails showing who has accessed or updated documents.

 

Disaster recovery – Keeping it all safe

 

Whether your existing documents are paper or electronic, there is a chance that you don’t have adequate disaster recovery plan in place. Document management systems protect your paper records by creating electronic copies that can be backed up in multiple ways. They also can include off-site data backups and other steps to ensure that a fire, flood, or break-in won’t cripple your business.

 

Access - Wider Access to Documents

 

Even as the Web makes it increasingly easy for employees to work remotely, paper records remain a serious roadblock to distributed organizations. Employing a CAB-i-NET document management system allows your employees (and 3rd parties) access to vital records from wherever they are. Simply allowing more than one employee to look at a file at the same time is a significant improvement over paper files. Additionally, multi-layered access allows employees to see and change only the documents they’re authorized to handle.

 

Process consistency - Better-quality documents

 

Many companies’ document handling processes are just fine without a computerized system – or so they think. One benefit that matters more to larger companies is that a document management system will enforce consistency to the degree you want it. Different departments may have different approval processes – but once those are defined, the system will make sure they’re followed. No longer will consistency in filing, naming conventions, and workflow suffer as you add new employees or cover for vacationing staff.