The Electronic document management it has become an important part of the governance infrastructure that supports decisions, audits, and internal controls, moving beyond being just an information digitization process.
Policies, minutes, procedures, and evidence, which were previously scattered in personal folders, email attachments, and ungoverned repositories, now become accessible and traceable in different parts of the organization.
In this article, we will understand how electronic document management has become so important for businesses and what the best way to connect documents to strategies, risks, and action plans is.
Why should you implement electronic document management?
Electronic document management is an important process for ensuring governance of an organization. With it, critical documents are created, stored, and accessed in a controlled manner in complex environments.
In practice, the importance of DMS (Electronic Document Managementappears when the company needs to easily access policies, meeting minutes, and processes, maintaining compliance and facilitating decision-making.
In other words, it ceases to be just a process of converting documents into digital formats (OCR) to become part of the organization as a whole.
Document management is central to recognized control structures, being necessary for different areas of a company, for example, the ISO 9001:2015 treats the quality management system as a documented process that evaluates performance and improvement.
Information security and compliance guide the creation, implementation, and maintenance of system improvements based on controlled documentation and clear responsibilities, as established by the ISO 37301:2021.
In this way, documentation ceases to be a bureaucracy and becomes the foundation of a management mechanism.
What are the biggest challenges in managing electronic documents in companies?
Electronic document management becomes a challenge when the company grows and expands its structures of compliance. In these cases, excess documentation becomes a problem when there is no control, context, owner, or traceability.
In many companies, documents circulate in different versions and locations, stored in departmental systems and local folders. This way, distinct versions are created from the same document, creating inconsistency and making it difficult to identify the official version.
Furthermore, other challenges are present, such as:
- The absence of defined responsible parties, whether for review, creation, or updating;
- The low traceability, necessary for audits and internal controls, as required by COSO Internal Control;
- A lack of access control that leaves the document vulnerable or inaccessible to certain collaborators.;
- The disconnection of documents from the organizational routine, which contributes to non-compliance of actions.
That's where a good document management shows a differential, as it solves common problems in the daily management of strategies, risks, and processes.
What are the benefits of electronic document management for top management?
Electronic document management delivers executive benefits when it improves information reliability, reduces audit risks, standardizes execution, and strengthens the organization's ability to demonstrate compliance.
In general, the benefits are many, including:
| Benefit | How does GED contribute |
| Preservation of organizational knowledge | Well-governed documents reduce reliance on informal knowledge and ensure that policies, processes, responsibilities, and strategic guidelines remain accessible, up-to-date, and standardized across areas, units, and geographies. |
| Audit Risk Reduction | GED reduces exposure caused by expired documents, scattered evidence, untraceable approvals, and poorly documented controls, strengthening the company's ability to demonstrate compliance with greater security. |
| Traceability of controls and evidence | Policies, matrices, treatment plans, review records, and monitoring evidence will be organized and connected to the risk cycle, facilitating proof of internal control execution. |
| Operational standardization | Official procedures, work instructions, safety standards, and process documents are available to the appropriate departments, always with the current version and revision history, reducing divergent interpretations in operations. |
| Sensitive policy and document governance | Document management strengthens control over corporate policies, training, HR documents, and sensitive materials, enabling demonstration of access, awareness, and up-to-dateness on topics such as conduct, safety, compensation, diversity, and regulatory compliance. |
Additionally, regulated sectors rely even more on auditable documentation and, therefore, the document organization and good management become essential for areas such as health, finance, energy, and the pharmaceutical industry.
How to structure a reliable electronic document management model?
A reliable electronic document management model begins with the definition of governance. To achieve this, it is necessary to establish What documents are critical?, their guardians, the classification, and who will be able to access them.
With that, the process would be as follows:
Map the documents
The first step is to map the documentation that requires greater control. This includes: corporate policies, internal standards, Standard Operating Procedures, operating instructions, and audit documents.
From this, it is necessary define criticality criteria, since not every document requires the same level of control.
Establish the ,
A good DMS model should define owners, reviewers, approvers, and stakeholders.
In this way, it is created , and reduces the risk of owning obsolete documents that are still active.
It is also important to establish the relevant audience, because it allows the document to be treated as a management communication tool.
Implement version control
Version control It is one of the main bases of most electronic document management software, allowing the current version to be identified and changes to be tracked, reducing conflicts between duplicate documents.
More than an operational functionality, versioning is a governance feature. In audits, it allows demonstrate when a policy was changed, by whom, with what justification, and which version was in effect during a certain period.
Link documents to risks, controls, and action plans
One of the biggest mistakes of GED is treating documents as isolated objects and not as part of a larger process. In mature companies, documents need to interact with the management architecture.
This connection also brings GED closer to technology governance and controls frameworks. COBIT 2019, for example, guides the governance and management of information and technology based on governance and management objectives, aligned with business goals.
Control document access
Document governance needs balance transparency and security. While some should be widely accessible to contributors, others require restriction and confidentiality.
Therefore, access control should allow segmentation by user, area, role, and document type. This reduces undue exposure, strengthens information protection, and creates adherence to security and compliance practices.
Monitor pending items, deadlines, and reviews
Critical documents require a lifecycle, which implies tracking revisions, approvals, and updates. Without monitoring, the company loses control which documents were created, which need updating, and which are expired.
Maintaining different versions in distinct software and locations can fragment management and make the document management process even more complicated. We talked a bit about this in one of our webinars, as you can see below:
Therefore, the implementation of electronic document management must include routines for review, alerts, responsible parties, and document governance indicators.
Some useful metrics include the percentage of overdue documents, average review time, number of outstanding documents, documents without an owner, critical documents with no assigned stakeholder, and pending evidence for audit.
How does Actio help with electronic document management?
Actio aids in electronic document management by positioning GED as part of corporate governance. Instead of acting only as a document repository, the platform connects documents to the company's management processes.
This positioning is relevant for companies that need more than storage.
In large organizations, the challenge isn't just about where to store documents, but how to ensure they are up-to-date, linked to responsible parties, accessible to the correct audience, and integrated into daily operations.
In general, the solution of Actio Document Management promotes benefits such as:
- Version control allows maintaining revision histories, identifying those responsible, and reducing the difficulty of locating the official version of a document;
- Document governance allows registering documents, structuring them into folders, and defining responsible parties and interested audiences;
- Compliance and Audit supports traceability, access control, and document organization;
- Integration with Microsoft and APIs: allows document management to dialogue with different programs through API integration;
- Documents related to enforcement: the document becomes part of management, associating them with processes and action plans.
With this, the program of Actio Document Management allows the company to maintain complete management of different protocols and policies.
What to consider before implementing document management?
The implementation of electronic document management should begin with a maturity assessment.
The company needs to understand Where are the critical documents, which areas produce the most documents, which standards or audits require evidence, which documents are expired, and what risks arise from a lack of control.
For this, electronic document management software, such as Actio's, helps to structure and maintain good document management, Ensuring the tracking of new document creation, revision, and update processes.
The Actio It still differentiates itself by connecting document management processes to indicators, risks, audits, and action plans, allowing documents to support corporate governance in real-time.
To understand how Actio's Document Management Solution can help your company structure and maintain document management, schedule a free demonstration by filling out the form below.
