How Essential Are Document Control Systems For Businesses?

---

Paperwork takes up a large part of our day while on the job, yet most of the time, it can’t – and shouldn’t – be avoided. Document control is always a good idea, but for sole proprietors and contractors who work for themselves, it can be handled manually or by using software that’s freely available. As we think about larger companies, a control system is crucial to meet the needs of a business to ensure that things run smoothly on a daily basis.

How important are your documents?

A company has a multitude of document categories, each with their own significance:

• Sensitive documents containing information about clients’ health, credit and debit cards, and legal cases
• Documents that contain a lot of work, such as program code, reports, financial statements, etc.
• Papers documenting the necessary licenses, completion of regulated procedures, and taxes in case of audit
• Documents for PR, sales pricing, and information on company services for customers

Keeping things under control

As you can see, different types of documents require different treatment. Documents that are part of the product or service you’re delivering needs backup so you won’t be set back in case your IT suffers catastrophic failure. Other documents need to have a physical copy of them stored as per legal requirements, while the rest just needs to be consistent and up-to-date. You need to evaluate how you’re going to accomplish all of this and create a strong plan of action so that you’re not bogging down your employees, causing legal hassles for your company, or impeding customer service to your clients.

What are your document control needs?

There are plenty of off-the-shelf solutions that you can try out, but as with anything that’s not tailor made, you won’t get everything you need from it. Your needs will be specific to your industry, business size, and other unique features of your company, although common considerations include:

• Is it scalable in cases of startups anticipating rapid growth?
• Can you grant different levels of access for employees?
• How are backups carried out?

Case study: growing your company in a time where low employee retention is the standard

Each time an employee leaves your company, they’re taking with them a small part of your company. They have intricate knowledge about the ins-and-outs of how things run, which a new employee may never fully understand. You can mitigate this knowledge gap with documents detailing business processes, best practices, and standards/ expectations. Unlike employees, your document control system will always stay with you!