How to Create an Efficient Compliance Management System?

Compliance document management is the task of managing different policies, procedures, work instructions, and compliance records to assure conformance with various standards and regulations. All of this is managed by a compliance manager. With the right document management system (DMS), this becomes a lot easier.

You see, all of these compliances exist in document form, which means that one could argue that compliance management and content management have a lot of things in common. One could even make an argument that a good CMS (content management system) can do wonders in compliance management.

With all of this in mind and without further ado, here’s what you need to know to create an efficient compliance management system.

What Is the Difference Between DMS and CMS?

First of all, it’s important to mention that while every CMS is also a DMS, not every DMS is also a CMS. The problem with documents is that they’re commonly referred to as “structured data.” So, DMS is great for structured data, but if you need to handle unstructured data, you will need a CMS.

To make the long story short, DMS is good enough for regulatory compliance and workflow management, but if you want to handle other types of content, as well, you’ll need a CMS. With AI already massively impacting content creation in all fields, the use of CMS, as well, might transform in the near future.

With the right platform, integrating either DMS or CMS platform is a fairly simple task.

Setting Policies and Procedures

The first element of compliance is the concept of policies and procedures. This is the set of rules that are governed by compliance, as well as the metric by which it will be determined whether or not compliance is honored.

The reason why this is important is that you need to create a formal and legal framework where you’ll practice what your organization stands for. Promising something is easy but sticking to it is something else entirely.

This matter is also closely tied to the code of ethics that is particularly important in some industries. Needless to say, companies that are involved in government contracting need to be extra careful of this.

Assigning Chief Compliance Officer

Just having a lawyer to tend to this is not enough. What you need instead is a trained and well-chosen compliance officer.

So, the next thing you need to do is assign a chief compliance officer. You need someone fair, modest, and responsible. This is a very responsible job, and you need someone who understands what is asked of them. You need someone who is going to take this very seriously.

The most important traits of a good compliance officer are that they are ethical and principled. You see, the key thing with compliance is that everything needs to be done by the books, and if it’s not, it’s done wrong. The best compliance officer has zero-tolerance (or as little as possible) for any kind of deviation.

Now, in some cases, this won’t be a job for a single person. In that case, the best thing to do would be to assign a compliance committee. This is a working group in charge of implementing and maintaining the compliance system in question.

Document Management System

As we’ve already mentioned, a DMS can be a handy tool in handling all your compliances. However, what are the advantages of this system, and how do you best use it in practice? The key thing is that all your compliance documents are:

• Secure
• In one place
• Easily accessible

This is why you want to have a compliance document management system in place.

Now, when it comes to choosing the right platform, there are a few things you should be looking out for. First, you want a platform that has a user-friendly UI and a beginner-friendly curve. Second, one of your primary requirements is a system that offers advanced access rights. This way, you get to effortlessly improve overall security.

For the sake of transparency, you want the audit trail and all the revisions to be thoroughly indexed. This way, there are no surprises, and diagnostics are fairly easy to execute (if you ever need them).

Compliance Monitoring and Internal Auditing

Another thing you should understand is the subtle difference between internal audit and compliance monitoring. The reason why you need to understand this difference is because, in this process, you’re going to use both of them.

The internal audit verifies the adequacy and effectiveness of any system in place. In other words, this is a sort of diagnostic to determine what was done and what should have been done instead. Compliance, on the other hand, is there to minimize risks, including reputational ones.

How these two concepts work together is that they monitor and react quickly to fix any issues. While auditors (in the past) have mostly focused on financial issues (which is why they were often hired amongst the accountants), today, reputational risks are being taken as seriously.

Responding to Issues

No system is perfect, and when it comes to responding to and investigating reported issues, you need to have a contingency plan. The better you respond to reported issues, the more effective your system is. It’s that simple.

Compliance support is incredibly important, and it may even require an entire team. This team may comprise a compliance officer, auditor, quality manager, and general customer support. The key thing to remember is that these documents and platforms are just tools and how effectively they’re used often depends on the team in charge.

With the help of the right DMS or CMS, it’s a lot easier for the team to get a grip on what’s going on. Having the right document on-demand makes all the difference in the world and facilitates the entire process quite drastically.

Wrap Up

Without compliance management, compliance documents, on their own, don’t have much practical value. You need to be able to access and check all of these documents at any time, even when you’re not doing an internal audit of your compliance. The truth is that you never know when this can come in as handy and that by having a system in place, you can make everything more dependable.