Article

Top three recordkeeping challenges—and how to solve them

Let’s be honest—recordkeeping is not a core business function in many organisations. It can be labour-intensive and time-consuming, with everyday business operations often taking priority.

However, failing to keep accurate, comprehensive records can put your organisation at risk of failing to meet its compliance requirements. That can have an immediate financial impact. And then there’s the longer-term productivity issue of employees not being able to find records quickly when they need them.

Thankfully, it is possible to take the pain out of the process. Here are three major recordkeeping challenges and how you can solve them.

1. How can I make it easier for employees to access records? 

Many organisations use multiple, disparate systems to manage their records, documents and other content. As a result, they don’t know what information is being stored and where. In fact, only 54 per cent of organisations know where all of their sensitive data is stored, according to a global survey by digital security firm Gemalto.

The solution is to consolidate all that information in a single, easily accessible central repository. However, it needs to be a system that makes it easy for your people to capture records and other types of information. And then they need to be able to readily find, use and manage that information. An enterprise content management (ECM) system can do all this and more.

2. How can I ensure my organisation complies with retention schedules?

Being able to safely and efficiently store your enterprise records and other content is vital.

Australia has more than 80 pieces of legislation regulating how information should be created, maintained, managed, transferred, discharged and disposed of. You certainly don’t want to risk breaching data laws, such as not being able to make information available for legal discovery or a Freedom of Information request. You need to be able to comply with relevant regulations or face the consequences, such as costly legal fees and significant damage to your organisation’s reputation.

A good ECM system can mitigate these risks by applying and managing data retention schedules to your content. With this capability, you can be assured that different types of data are retained for designated timespans before being deleted or archived.

3. How can we be better prepared for audits? 

Auditing is a necessary part of document integrity to ensure your organisation meets its compliance needs. The trouble is many organisations treat records management as an afterthought and scramble when the time comes to conduct an audit.

But document audits don’t have to be difficult. An ECM system should offer full auditing capabilities, including clearly defined audit trails and the reports that your organisation needs for legislative or compliance requirements.

With the right ECM system in place, you’ll find it much easier to overcome your record keeping challenges. It will take the pain out of managing records and putting in place controls for your compliance needs, including document retention and auditing requirements.

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Publish date

26 Jul 2021

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