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What is Document Control?
Document control is a crucial element to any archiving project, but is often overlooked due its time-consuming nature. However, comprehensive document control is essential to ensuring your documents are secure and accountable, even during the process of scanning them.
Effective document control should play a central part in every organisation's processes, with systems in place to minimise error – both by tracking individual files for BS10008 compliance, and by ensuring we have customer authorisation before we scan, deliver, or destroy any documentation.
This is particularly helpful for the healthcare sector, since by efficiently generating collection lists for medical records, we help organisations to maximise data accuracy while minimising staff effort.
What are the Benefits of Document Control?
Enhanced Productivity
- Searching and accessing information is more straightforward, saving time and enhancing productivity
- Tracking changes reduces the likelihood of accidental duplication or employees working off outdated information, preventing costly errors
- Improving transparency between team members streamlines collaborative projects
Quality Management
- Document Control standardises procedures for handling information, making it easier for processes to be followed consistently, both enhancing the quality of work and ensuring compliant working practices
- Systems of this kind can easily be audited to international standards of quality, showing that your processes are high quality, secure, and trustworthy to your customers and partners.
Compliant Operations
- By managing and tracking documents, you make it easier to meet industry-specific compliance requirements.
- Version histories are an auditable record of actions taken; giving your digital documents legal credibility whilst displaying compliance with data privacy legislation.
Secure Data
- Document Control systems protect confidential information from unauthorised access.
- Security is ensured by only keeping records for the required duration, with automatic functions to securely dispose of them when no longer needed.
- Your flow of information is continually tracked in and out of your organisation, ensuring nothing is unaccounted for.
What role does Document Control play in business?
In the event of unforeseen circumstances, effective Document Control can mean the difference between a disaster and inconvenience.
Ensure your compliancy with industry-standard regulations by using a Document Control system – which ensures that specific files are always accounted for with consistent and repeatable procedures. This covers the complete life cycles of your documents: including creation, distribution, storage, retrieval, and disposal.
The below sections outline how you can turn your document management challenges into an efficient document control system.
What is a Document Control System?
A Document Control System refers to a mixture of software and workplace practices which are designed to ease the flow of information throughout your organisation, whilst ensuring you are maintaining the highest standards of compliance.
A system of this kind allows you to holistically manage the lifecycles of your business information by tracking your documents from the creation phase, through to capturing, storage, retrieval, and distribution.
What is Document Version Control?
Want to keep track of how and when a document was modified? Version Control is a feature of a Document Management system that creates a new version of a document whenever changes are made – allowing you to record changes made to document from an original ‘master copy’. However, end users will only see the up-to-date version, ensuring that your staff are always collaborating from the same page.
Being able to track historical changes also allows you to easily troubleshoot internal processes or settle disputes – with features like secure check-in tracking who is changing what, whilst protecting against conflicting changes being made by multiple users at once.
Why is Document Control Important?
Sets the Tone
Making your document control policies clear from the outset communicates your commitment to precision, accuracy, and responsible information management – setting a tone of professionalism and meticulousness for your people to follow for the future.
Demonstrate Reliability & Trustworthiness
A thorough Document Control system showcases your organisation’s reliability, ensuring that information is accurate, up-to-date, and easily accessible only to those with permission – building your reputation for trustworthiness, and nurturing relationships with stakeholders, customers, partners, and regulatory bodies.
Consistent Standards
Keeping processes consistent and repeatable is an important facet of good document control. By establishing standardised good practice for creating, managing, and distributing documents, you reduce the likelihood of errors, confusion, and further inefficiencies.
Relevance at Points of Use
Document Version Control makes relevant documents readily available to authorised users as and when they are required. As well as minimising disruptions caused by outdated information, this enables your people to deliver excellent service to your clientele, and support effective decision-making across throughout your operations.
Establishing Document Control Policies & Procedures
Adhering to recognised standards is crucial for boosting credibility, promoting the trustworthiness of your brand, and maximising the benefits of a Document Management system.
Features of Document Control
Document Control with Apogee
Apogee solutions are designed to scale with your business, with ongoing support and constant development readily available. Get in touch for a free consultation with digital transformation experts, or give us a call today!
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