If you’ve ever found yourself lost in a maze of outdated files or version control chaos, searching for that one missing file that seems to have vanished off the face of the earth, you’re definitely not alone. What you are, however, is a frustrated professional who just wasted valuable time that could’ve been put to better use chasing strategic business goals of your organization.
This is what the absence of a proper document control does to your organization.
But, unfortunately, that’s not the whole story: think of the potential compliance nightmares when auditors come knocking and critical documents are nowhere to be found. Or the costly errors that arise from teams unknowingly working with outdated information.
To avoid this kind of document fiasco, you need a solid document control system. Not aware of what is document control? Let’s find out.
What is Document Control?
Document control refers to a systematic procedure through which you can create, verify, review, and distribute documents in your organization in an organized and controlled manner. The purpose of document control is to establish controls for approving, tracking, and versioning documents.
With document control, you can ensure that all documents associated with your organization are current, easily accessible by authorized personnel, and accurately maintained throughout their lifecycle.
What is a Document Control System?
A document control system is a set of tools and protocols designed to enable your document control process. It is primarily used to define the way you control information and data within your organization. These systems can be paper-based and manual or electronic and automated.
Your document control system demonstrates your ability to comply with relevant quality control and regulation standards. In fact, having a proper document control system in place is one of the chief requirements of ISO 9001 compliance, which is associated with quality management.
Understanding the Components of Document Control
When you are developing a document control system, make sure you include the following components:
1. Document control template
A document control template provides consistency in formatting, structure, and content of your document. You get a standardized starting point so that every document of your organization follows the same professional look and logic.
2. Clear labelling system
A proper labeling system is your first line of defense against confusion and errors. When all your documents are tagged with clear titles, dates, version numbers, and categories, it's much easier for everyone to identify and locate what they need, without guesswork or digging through clutter, which also saves your employees' valuable time.
3. Storage and retrieval
Whether you are using a cloud-based or on-premises storage system, it should be secure, scalable, and easy to navigate. It keeps your documents protected, backed up, and accessible whenever they are needed. A sound document control system should allow users to quickly search and retrieve documents through metadata like date, title, or department.
4. Version control guidelines
Version control helps you track changes and ensures everyone's working on the most up-to-date file. Guidelines can prevent confusion, errors, and redundancy caused by multiple uncontrolled versions floating around.
5. Review and approval
Establish clear procedures for review and approval of documents. This helps you ensure that every document goes through the right checks before it's finalized or published.
6. Access controls
Not all documents are meant for everyone's eyes. Access controlling your documents lets you assign roles and permissions so only authorized employees can view, edit, or approve specific documents.
7. Retention and archival
You cannot store documents forever, which is why you need to define policies on how long documents should be retained, when they should be archived, and when they should be safely disposed of.
8. Disposal system
Old and outdated documents take up a lot of space, along with posing serious compliance and security risks. A well-defined disposal system outlines how and when to delete or destroy documents in a secure, compliant manner, ensuring nothing slips through the cracks.
Why is Document Control Important for Your Business?
The purpose of document control is to avert mistakes in decision-making and to establish clarity, accountability, and compliance at every level of your operations. Here's why having a document control system is necessary for your business.
1. Avoid errors and confusion
With clearly defined workflows and controlled access, document control helps prevent unauthorized changes, duplicated efforts, and costly mistakes from using outdated or incorrect information.
2. Enable smart decision-making
When you maintain a comprehensive record of each document's lifecycle, including its origin, modifications, and version history, you create a culture of transparency and accountability. This ensures that all business decisions are based on the most current and officially approved information.
3. Quick and easy information access
With a dedicated document control, there is no need to waste hours searching through chaotic folders. It helps you store information in uniquely identifiable files, with clearly marked versions so you always know which one is current.
4. Protect sensitive data
Role-based access and change restrictions ensure that information is shielded from manipulation, unauthorized edits, or accidental deletion. Your sensitive data stays exactly where and how it's supposed to be.
5. Maintain consistency and traceability
With standard templates, proper labelling conventions, and audit trails, your documentation remains consistent across departments. This gives you the advantage of easily tracing the documents whenever needed, which comes in handy when responding to audits or client inquiries.
6. Ensure compliance
Regulatory standards like ISO 9001, ISO 13485, ISO 45001, ISO 27001, and ISO 14001 demand robust documentation practices. Document control helps you meet those requirements with effortless ease, reducing your risk of non-compliance penalties.
7. Preserve organizational knowledge
When employees leave, they often take valuable knowledge with them. Document control captures that institutional memory, ensuring your business operations don't suffer from knowledge gaps or lost insights.
What are the Challenges in Manual Document Control?
Manually managing document control often results in your documents being scattered across physical filing cabinets, local drives, or buried deep within endless email chains. Tracking is typically done using spreadsheets or handwritten logs, while documents are shared via email or stored on loosely organized network drives with minimal access control.
To review and approve processes, you have to rely on physical routing and wet signatures. Moreover, when you need to duplicate and distribute these documents, you require excessive printing and copying, consuming both time and resources, all while increasing the risk of misplacement, inconsistencies, and compliance lapses. All of this leads to:
- Inefficiency and time consumption
- Higher risk of errors and inaccuracies
- Poor security and data breaches
- Difficult collaboration
- Lack of robust version control
- Challenges with compliance
- Limited visibility and reporting
- Higher costs
The solution to this manual processing is using a document control software like Effivity that streamlines and automates the whole process. With Effivity, all your documents can be stored in a centralized, secure digital repository that enhances visibility. It automatically tracks document revisions, creates new versions, and maintains a history of all changes.
Additionally, you can define detailed user permissions, restricting access to particular documents or folders based on roles and responsibilities. It also facilitates seamless collaboration, offers powerful search capabilities, and simplifies your compliance and audit readiness.
Final Thoughts
Document control is an essential procedure that streamlines how your organization handles, manages, and maintains documents. It leads to greater accuracy, improved compliance, and ensures that critical information is always current, secure, and easily accessible when you need it most.
However, with a platform like Effivity, document control becomes even more seamless and cost-efficient. It offers automated version tracking, role-based access, real-time updates, and full audit trails to help you stay compliant without operational strain.
