In the ever-evolving business landscape, companies must allow easy access to relevant information and adhere to regulatory standards.
Whether for a start-up or a multinational corporation, how an organisation manages its documents can play a pivotal role in how the company operates.
The way a business manages its documents contributes directly to its operations, compliance and overall efficiency. With document challenges accounting for a 21% productivity loss in businesses, ensuring effective document control can be vital.
McKinsey’s report also highlights the importance of overcoming document challenges, stating that employees spend 1.8 hours every day searching for and gathering information — that’s 9.3 hours every week.
Throughout this blog post, we look into the world of document control, exploring its importance and intricacies.
We also look into the role of document management software and how a business like yours can utilise it to streamline its processes.
- What is document control?
- Why is document control important?
- The document control process
- The benefits of document control
- The role of a document management system (DMS) in document control
- Why companies need document management software
- What do these document management software features contribute to?
- The importance of mastering document control
What is document control?
Document control is the systematic and organised approach to managing documents throughout their lifecycle.
It involves how an organisation approaches the creation, review, approval, updating and archiving of documents in a structured manner and in electronic files, if done digitally.
The primary goal of document control is to ensure consistency, accuracy and accessibility of information across a company’s document set.
An effective document control process ensures one master version of each document present within a system, and each document created from it has a full version history.
Why is document control important?
Effective document control helps to improve operations, compliance and overall efficiency throughout a business.
Let’s explore some key reasons why document control is essential for organisations.
Consistency and accuracy
Consistency and accuracy are essential when it comes to documentation. Document control ensures that all parties work with the latest and most accurate information.
By doing so, with processes like master documents, organisations can minimise the risk of errors and promote consistency across communication.
Regulatory and quality standards
Compliance with regulatory standards is non-negotiable for an organisation. By staying compliant, businesses can avoid implications such as financial penalties, legal repercussions and reputational damage.
Document control can be pivotal for remaining compliant by ensuring all company documents adhere to these standards.
It’s recommended to refer to the ICO’s document checklist to ensure compliance requirements are met.
Avoiding costly mistakes and rework
Errors in documentation can cause costly delays with the potential of having to rework projects.
Document control is a safeguard for this, reducing the likelihood by assuring the standardisation of procedures for document creation, review and approval.
The document control process
To ensure effective document control, your company must carry out the following steps successfully.
1. Document creation
Your documents should be created with established templates and guidelines, helping to ensure consistency across your organisation.
Having these templates in place before any documents are created will reduce the time taken to not only create documents but also understand them.
2. Review and approval
Your documents should undergo a rigorous review process that ensures they meet the eyes of all relevant stakeholders.
Based on the guidelines your company has already put in place, approval is only granted when the document meets the predefined criteria.
3. Updating
Over time, your documents will likely become outdated, and information must be altered as it evolves.
Document control ensures that any implemented changes are tracked, approved and communicated effectively.
4. Archiving
As well as the need to update documents over time, you may also need to archive documents that no longer serve a purpose.
Outdated or obsolete documents should be archived systematically, maintaining a historical record to refer back to.
The benefits of document control
Your document control procedure can facilitate benefits across your organisation, including extra efficiency and regulatory compliance.
Let’s explore some of these benefits below.
1. Improved efficiency
Streamlining your document control processes can reduce the time and effort it takes for employees to locate relevant documents.
Adding these efficiencies will reduce the time needed to update and share information, increasing operational efficiency.
2. Cost and time-savings
Extra operational efficiency and added quality control measures can lead to cost savings for your company.
You’ll be saving time and reducing the amount of costly errors in your documentation. Over time, this can contribute to significant cost savings.
The Owens Group implemented a DMS as part of its digital transformation to streamline its incoming invoices and release of orders. With the cloud solution provided by DocuWare, digital forms are now electronically forwarded to the relevant authorised representatives in the company.
The invoice process has been drastically accelerated with DocuWare, so now all documentation is stored transparently and in an orderly fashion.
“Employees can now access documents from any device, integrate them into workflows and, for example, approve or cancel invoices. No matter where they are.
3. Mitigating risks
Your document control procedure can help to act as a risk mitigation strategy for your business.
You can facilitate this by providing a clear audit trail for documents, enabling you to trace the evolution of documents and identify potential issues before they escalate.
4. Improved decision-making
Document control ensures that your teams have the most accurate and up-to-date information available at any time.
By having this information at their fingertips, your teams can make better-informed decisions to positively impact the company’s trajectory.
The role of a document management system (DMS) in document control
As with many business processes worldwide, implementing technology can play a pivotal role in generating significant efficiencies and cutting company costs.
A document management system (DMS) helps to organise your documents in several ways, including file type, data type or priority level.
You can store your documents based on set rules and limited permissions so only authorised eyes see each specific document. By doing so, only approved users can make changes, reducing the chances of discrepancies between documents.
By using a DMS, organisations can also demonstrate a commitment to sustainability by going paperless with documents. Not only is a paperless system far more efficient for sorting, tracking and locating documents, but you’ll also be saving the 10 litres of water it takes to produce every piece of copy paper.
Document control software automates workflows that organise and track documents, expediting the document lifecycle through technology.
Why companies need document management software
Efficient processes across the board are vital to any growing business, and document control is no different. Companies find themselves generating and managing large amounts of information daily, ranging from reports to statements to compliance documents.
It also impacts every team possible, from finance to HR and everything in between. When you think of the number of departments it affects and then how much documentation is involved in each, it showcases the importance of implementing reliable document management software with robust features.
Document management software is the tool to effectively navigate through the ever-growing amounts of information that companies produce.
Centralised repository
Software can provide a centralised repository for your organisation’s documents, meaning files are stored in one place and can be accessed anywhere at any time.
This means that employees can easily retrieve files, ensuring they won’t have to search through disparate systems for the most relevant and vital information. Instead, they can use that time that’s usually wasted on more rewarding and high-value tasks.
Transboundary collaboration
Many modern businesses also work across geographical boundaries with teams based in various locations. Without endless paper documents, multiple teams in various locations can access documents at the same time.
By facilitating real-time access and updates to documents, document management software can ensure that all stakeholders are working with the most up-to-date information wherever they are in the world.
Version control
Version control is also a key aspect of document control that document management software can assist with. The software can help to maintain a comprehensive audit trail, track changes and revisions, and manage approvals.
Doing so will enhance the transparency of documents throughout their lifecycle and provide relevant teams with a detailed history of document modifications.
Automation
Automated workflows can streamline the document lifecycle, from creation to approval and eventually archiving.
As with many other processes, automation significantly reduces the risk of human error and generates huge business efficiencies. It also ensures your documents follow a standardised path set using your established procedures.
Security
Data and document security is a top priority for organisations, especially when storing documents. Document management software helps to address these concerns regarding the standardisation and organisation of documents across the business.
Features like role-based controls, encryption and secure authentication mechanisms safeguard your company’s sensitive information, preventing data breaches and unauthorised access.
Scalability
As a business grows, the number of documents it needs to handle grows with it. Document management software facilitates scalability by allowing you to manage increasing loads of documents through the power of automation.
Whether for a start-up or enterprise, document management software technology provides the flexibility to accommodate varying document requirements.
The benefits don’t end there either. Using document management software for document control means you can finally transition to becoming a paperless office, eliminate the costs of relying on paper storage and finally gain peace of mind for business continuity.
What do these document management software features contribute to?
Software can contribute significantly to time and cost efficiencies across your organisation when it comes to handling documents.
Automating routine tasks can reduce manual errors and facilitate faster access to relevant information. This means businesses can optimise their operations, resulting in overall cost savings and improved productivity.
The importance of mastering document control
When done right, document control is a crucial aspect of any modern business. It allows organisations to maintain consistency and accuracy across varying document types, facilitating the meeting of regulatory standards.
By embracing the principles in this blog and leveraging document management software, companies can easily navigate information management.
