Not every business experiences audits on a regular basis, but those that do understand the headache that often accompanies an audit. Organizations that are publicly run, tax-exempt or contracted by the government face audits most frequently, but every business has the potential to be audited at some point.
Auditors often require access to a plethora of company information to ensure your practices are compliant with regulations. This may include information such as payroll and other employee data, your company’s financial statements, and more. If your business’s documents are not stored efficiently, an audit can become an extremely stressful and time-consuming affair. Worse yet, if your company documentation is not stored in an organized manner, you also run the risk of being noncompliant. For instance, if certain documents are missing during an audit and can’t be found, or if they are stored in a manner that is not secure enough to comply with regulations, your business could face penalties for noncompliance.
Instead of stressing about your next audit and wondering if your processes are up to industry standards, get ahead of the auditors by implementing a smart, compliant document management system. Here are 5 ways document management can improve the audit process for your organization:
- Improve accessibility to necessary documentation. Instead of shuffling through file cabinets, desk drawers, email inboxes and other places where documentation might be stored, a document management system provides quick, secure access to documents in one central location. Preparation time for an audit is essentially eliminated when your documents are captured, transformed into searchable PDFs and stored in a digital document repository.
- Increase security to ensure regulatory compliance. Whereas physical file cabinets lack true security, document management allows documents to be securely stored where only authorized users can access them.
- Improve employee productivity during audit time. Instead of spending valuable time hunting down documentation for the audit, your employees can continue to work so no productivity is lost due to an audit.
- Make the workflow trail visible to auditors. A good document management system allows visibility into the workflow, so auditors can see which users accessed information, when updates were made to documents, and other details about your organization’s document processes.
- Easily update procedures to comply with changes in regulations. Industry regulations are always subject to change, and when they do change, you want your business to be able to comply quickly and without unnecessary hassle. Having an effective document management strategy will allow your organization to quickly update your procedures to remain compliant.
Great document management begins with a smart, efficient document capture and data extraction tool. Streamlining your document processes and securely routing captured documents into a secure document repository is the best way to ensure compliance and be prepared for an audit. Find out how a government-funded human resource agency utilized PSIcapture with M-Files to improve the audit process in our recent case study, or contact a sales representative for more details about how PSIGEN can benefit your business.
