Continuity planning is crucial in times of uncertainty. Discover the tools and strategies to keep your business moving at all times, in any situation, on any device.
Topics Covered in the eBook
Learn how your office can prepare a 360-degree action plan for minor and major disruptions to operations and keep assets safe.
9 must-have policies that every business should build into its business continuity plan.
Strategies to maximize efficiency and productivity so your business can thrive, even in uncertain times.
See how enterprise content management and cloud technology can keep your business focused on serving those who need you the most.
For Riela Yachts Ltd — a company that provides cybersecurity, safety, technical, crew, fiduciary administration and emergency response services to superyachts — safety and quality service are top priorities. Using Laserfiche, the organization recently transformed the way that it manages information related to safety standards in order to make critical safety processes and procedures more efficient, effective and transparent. This digital transformation has supported crews in their ability to focus on their day-to-day jobs, and further enabled owners and their guests to fully enjoy their superyacht experience.
Navigating Digital Transformation
Modern superyachts — commercially operated luxury yachts that are 24 meters or larger — have some of the most advanced technology onboard, including engineering and navigational equipment, plus sophisticated “toys” like tenders, helicopters, cars and fully-equipped cinemas. Dedicated to providing services that fully complement superyacht operations, Riela Yachts also leverages leading technology in order to provide a modern experience for those they serve.
Large luxury motor yacht under way sailing out at sea
The company used this tech-forward approach when developing a new solution for meeting the International Safety Management (ISM) Code, an international standard for seagoing vessels.
“It was shocking to understand that on the bridge of these vessels they were operating with huge amounts of paper,” said Christian Moore, technical officer at Riela Yachts.
Riela’s Safety Management System (SMS) is made up of standard operating procedures, contingency plans, operating manuals, reporting forms and more. Prior to using Laserfiche, this information was managed manually, on paper — employees had to print, scan and file documents related to the ISM Code. When updates were made, manuals had to be flown to vessels’ locations, which could be anywhere in the world. A single superyacht could use over 5,000 pages’ worth of forms and manuals each year. The paper and manual processes involved with updating them led to the possibility of ships having outdated versions onboard, and made audits extremely cumbersome.
Riela Yachts recognized an opportunity to digitize and streamline the updating of these manuals, enabling yachts to work smarter and crews to focus on day-to-day operations.
Riela Yachts set out to reduce the amount of paper being used onboard, decrease crews’ administration load as well as improve auditability, to support and simplify ISM Code compliance. By digitizing the manuals that were once made of thousands of pages of paper, Riela Yachts can now store them in an electronic repository. The company also automated the process of updating the manuals of all the superyachts it serves, so that once a change is made, all vessels receive the latest information within minutes.
“We wanted to achieve a fully paperless superyacht where possible and improve the time spent on the SMS for crew, so they can get back to their real job, which is ensuring the owner enjoys their asset to the fullest,” Moore said.
Using Laserfiche Forms, Riela also developed more than 30 electronic forms in the SMS that help individual crews streamline regular procedures. These forms include arrival and departure in port, accident reporting, and checklists for when the engine room goes unmanned.
Now, all information related to these critical safety procedures is collected digitally and automatically sent to Riela’s staff at headquarters in the Isle of Man, so it can be reviewed and stored in a central repository.
Smooth Sailing
Riela Yachts and their customers have saved significant time and money from working smarter and digitizing, centralizing and automating safety manuals and processes. Vessels have the most recent information at their fingertips, making compliance with the ISM Code much less of an administrative burden. Crews are freed from many of the previously required manual tasks and captains are able to audit completed tasks as needed by the ISM.
The company is now also using Laserfiche to digitize more forms including permits for work, standing orders as well as management minutes. Also currently in the works: moving to a mobile app version of the SMS, which will allow captains to access the system through a tablet.
Riela has also been able to recoup administration costs associated with the manual processes and gain new clients as positive reactions to the modern, digital SMS system experience have spread through the docks and shipyards.
“We are excited to for the future and even greater returns on investments as the company grows and expands,” Moore said. “The savings, returns and new business we have gained from introducing Laserfiche have been significant and, after just celebrating our one-year anniversary as a company, we see Laserfiche aiding our success over the years to come.”
A digital filing system, as you might expect, primarily serves the purpose of converting your more traditional filing systems, such as filing cabinets and stacks of folders, into a digital format that makes it easier to search for and store documents.
An enterprise content management (ECM) system does everything digital filing system software can do and more. It adds additional layers of security, administration and collaboration that make it ideal for offices that want to become not only more organized, but also more scalable and efficient.
One of the most obvious advantages of any digital system is the ability to scan and capture digital or paper documents. Digital filing systems can reduce clutter and create more space around the office, while being able to store documents almost indefinitely, which can be crucial for the proper preservation of historical records.
Along with being able to scan documents, most digital filing systems allow users to fill out information about each entry — frequently referred to as metadata — that makes content more searchable and thus easy to find. This can include anything from time stamps to receipt amounts and invoice numbers, information that many organizations find essential for business operations.
Compared to a standard digital filing system, quality ECM systems include optical character recognition (OCR) technology, which can pull information directly from a document to auto-generate its associated metadata. For example, accounts payable departments across industries regularly process invoices and compare them to purchase orders sent out to vendors. With OCR, they would be able to streamline the matching process, and with the help of other technologies, likely create an entirely automated process.
Search and Storage
A key advantage of a digital filing system over a paper one is the ability to more easily search for documents. In a digital filing system, you can search for documents based on name, contents and associated metadata. Digital folders are also incredibly more flexible than physical ones, being able to expand with your organization’s needs.
ECM solutions go beyond simply making documents easy to find and store, however.ECM systems also make information easier to share and keep track of, with features such as co-authoring and version control. Most enterprises face challenges dealing with collaboration — whether multiple teams need to sign off on a document or work together, documents can be lost or contain errors if communication isn’t a priority. The collaboration features of ECM help teams collectively agree on the formatting and content of documents, while version controls assist in efforts to provide an accurate history of them. This is a boon for highly regulated industries, such as finance. An ECM solution can support these firms in their efforts to stay in compliance while providing their own staff and auditors up-to-date and correct information.
Ease of Access
With so many devices at the disposal of today’s users, most digital filing systems feature a variety of ways to access their content. A digital filing system may include different clients for desktop, web and even mobile. This is a boon for expanding enterprises as it keeps documents, ideas and projects moving.
Of course, the more accessible information is, the harder it is to control what is public or private. However, ECM systems offer tools to restrict or open up document access to meet your organization’s needs. For example, if you’re a government agency that needs to retain transparency, you can host a public portal with an ECM system that supports compliance with FOIA and allows constituents to stay informed about agency projects, initiatives, meeting minutes and more. On the other hand, the same agency can use an ECM system to restrict access to confidential documents, such as staff records.
Choosing the Best Solution for You
Although a digital system can fulfill many of your organization’s needs and facilitate the move towards a paperless office,the right enterprise content management system may be your best solution as it can offer even more benefits.
With the ability to pull data from scanned documents, foster collaboration and provide the tools to support compliance, ECM can help your organization more clearly manage its information in order to propel itself towards success.
Ready to learn more about the benefits of an enterprise content management system?
Mille Lacs Corporate Ventures (MLCV), created by the tribal government of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, manages the business affairs of the Band. This includes oversight of two casinos, Grand Casino Mille Lacs and Grand Casino Hinckley, which employ nearly 3,000 people and welcome millions of guests each year. The casinos, as well as the rest of the Band’s portfolio, use Laserfiche enterprise content management (ECM) to automate and streamline key business processes.
Over the years, the casinos in particular have achieved great economic success thanks to a strong operations infrastructure powered by Laserfiche. That steady growth, however, has led to a very large and complex business environment that is catered to sustaining the needs of the casinos. The MLCV leadership team knew that they needed to create a separate business environment for corporate operations to maintain performance, so they made the decision to migrate MLCV content and processes to Laserfiche Cloud in order to create a more accessible and agile environment for corporate operations.
Transitioning Key Business Processes to the Cloud
For the last 10 years, Laserfiche has been instrumental in supporting the Band’s mission of building a sound economic future for generations to come by enabling the Band to standardize, automate and optimize core company processes. Having initially deployed Laserfiche on-premises, the MLCV team was confident that they could leverage Laserfiche Cloud to build an accessible corporate business environment quickly, with the added bonus of familiar technology.
“The digital workplace is constantly evolving, and the obvious next step for us was to start transitioning operations to the cloud,” said Angie Litchy, CIO of Mille Lacs Corporate Ventures. “We selected Laserfiche Cloud because we already had a successful on-prem solution, which means we could easily migrate key workflows and ensure business continuity while we made the transition.”
“Mille Lacs Corporate Ventures has always been at the forefront of using technology to create efficiencies,” said Ned Weizenegger, COO at Laserfiche Solution Provider Minokaw Technologies. “Moving operations to the cloud was a natural next step, and aligns well with MLCV’s vision of improving businesses and communities by infusing passion and ideas.”
Among the first workflows that Mille Lacs Corporate Ventures migrated to the cloud was the contract management process.
“Before our initial Laserfiche solution was implemented, contracts were impossible to get a status on because the process varied from person to person, which created bottlenecks and lost information,” said Andrew McElrath, strategic project manager at Mille Lacs Corporate Ventures. “Laserfiche introduced uniformity and a clear line of authority, which ultimately expedited the entire process from weeks to just hours. It was a priority to ensure that this process wasn’t interrupted as we transitioned operations to the cloud.”
The contract process was migrated to the cloud with few alterations. Today, associates can start the contract process by submitting a Laserfiche Form with the contract for review. The information is automatically routed to the submitter’s supervisor, contract coordinator, COO, CFO and legal counsel for review and approval. The document is then sent to the legal coordinator who prepares the document for final signature by the vendor, and then the countersignature of the MLCV CEO. The legal coordinator also stores a final version in the Laserfiche repository.
“In Laserfiche Cloud, it’s easier for us to determine where requests are in the process at a glance,” McElrath said. “And the transition itself was fairly easy. Our Laserfiche Solution Provider mocked up the forms and process for us, then we would review it and suggest changes. The most important part of the process is to communicate clearly and test thoroughly so that your solution fits your needs once it has been launched.”
Reevaluating Business Needs
Another major benefit of transitioning to the cloud was that it created an opportunity for MLCV leadership to reevaluate the organization’s established processes and make adjustments if needed.
“We have been using and building upon our Laserfiche Workflows for a number of years, and the way our business operates has evolved since that initial implementation,” said McElrath. “We wanted to introduce more efficiency into our processes, so we took a hard look at what we were doing and how we could do it better.”
For example, during the transition, the MLCV team realized that the purchasing process was cumbersome and it could be streamlined further. Migrating to the cloud provided the chance to take another look at the process and simplify it.
Today, associates can access Laserfiche Cloud in order to submit a purchase request. After logging into the online system, the employee navigates to the purchase request page, fills out required fields (such as the purchase amount, purchase order number and vendor IDs), attaches required materials, and submits the request. From there, the request is routed to an approver depending on the cost of the purchase. The appropriate reviewers will then approve or reject the purchase order through the system. If approved, the information is submitted to a purchasing agent who can then follow through with the request.
“The entire process is completed in the cloud,” said McElrath. “Every individual that is included in the workflow can complete their portion of the process from the comfort of their home, from a conference or on an airplane. All they need is a mobile device and access to the internet.”
Looking ahead
Mille Lacs Corporate Ventures has migrated many business processes to Laserfiche Cloud including contract management, purchase order requests, annual appraisals, direct deposits, system access requests, tuition reimbursement requests and more. This has been especially helpful since all the company officers now have remote access to one common business platform, enabling the organization to standardize, streamline and expedite major business processes.
“Laserfiche’s compliance tools in the cloud, and knowing that Laserfiche takes security very seriously have been important factors in our decision making.”
—Andrew McElrath, strategic project manager at Mille Lacs Corporate Ventures
Other benefits to transitioning to Laserfiche Cloud include:
The organization easily migrated key business processes to Laserfiche Cloud without introducing a learning curve or creating a gap in business continuity.
Employees no longer need to be on-site in order to complete work, which has reduced bottlenecks, improved efficiency and bolstered productivity.
MLCV simplified operations since Laserfiche Cloud requires no physical hardware and users receive instant updates.
“Once you’re invested in Laserfiche as a platform, you start to unlock a lot of the value,” said Litchy. “Now that we have the system, we are invested in leveraging it to its full potential to reach our business goals.”
Tecnoglass is a leading glass and window manufacturer, and the first Colombian company to be listed on the NASDAQ. Since its beginnings in 1984, the company has gained recognition for delivering high-quality products, competitive prices and timely delivery. In more recent years, Tecnoglass experienced tremendous growth, doubling revenue since 2014 thanks to the company’s vertically integrated business and strong, innovative product offerings.
To remain on the forefront of the industry and continue to meet customer expectations, Tecnoglass introduced automation to its operations. This transfomation has affected not only the fabrication of products, but also core business processes across the enterprise.
At the heart of Tecnoglass’s digitization and business process automation initiatives is Laserfiche, which the company uses to store critical documents, manage records and enable collaboration between employees and with external suppliers. This Laserfiche-enabled digital transformation has benefited the entire organization, increasing accountability, improving compliance and accelerating business across all units. Today, Tecnoglass continues on its growth trajectory using Laserfiche to eliminate repetitive, time-intensive manual tasks, and enable employees to maintain focus on fulfilling customers’ quality and service expectations and remaining competitive in the marketplace.
Positioned for Growth
In December 2013, Tecnoglass debuted on NASDAQ. Shortly after, the organization sought a better way to manage documents, since the company’s legacy system was no longer robust enough to meet the demands of a rapidly growing business and could not be integrated with other core technologies.
“Records were disorganized, and stored in warehouses making them difficult to find,” said Plinio Florez, document management coordinator at Tecnoglass. “This led to high storage costs and labor costs associated with searching for documents. It was almost impossible to consult files for decision-making, which delayed critical processes.”
Tecnoglass also faced challenges collaborating with suppliers. The legacy supplier registration process was manually driven and paper-based, which led to lost documents, and difficulties with authorizing suppliers and making payments.
The Tecnoglass team found that Laserfiche could meet the company’s document management needs as well as enable the automation of key business processes such as supplier registration and accounts payable. The Laserfiche platform was also easily integrated with Tecnoglass’s ERP system, helping to centralize data and operations.
Tecnoglass also enlisted the help of Colombia-based Laserfiche Solution Provider, Gestech, for the implementation. “Having local support was another important part of our decision making process,” said Florez.
“Laserfiche was the perfect choice to take Tecnoglass into the next phase of growth and expansion,” said Jaime Barrios Perez, CEO of Gestech. “By using Laserfiche to centralize information, and digitize and automate processes, Tecnoglass created a more seamless experience for employees and suppliers that is closely aligned with the company’s modern, global vision.”
Getting Ahead by Going Digital-First
The most immediate change Tecnoglass made was to digitize documents and store the electronic files in a Laserfiche repository, making information easier to process and share with outside parties when needed.
“We had to change the mentality of employees, which was that documents are only safe if they’re ‘physically available,’” said Florez. “To the contrary, by digitizing paperwork, we have enhanced controls and mitigated risk of information loss.”
Digitization made an impact across the company, especially in the foreign trade department, which manages significant amounts of Tecnoglass’s transactions and activities. The company was able to save nearly $73,000,000 Colombian pesos in costs related to shipping and processing paperwork alone. Today, the company’s Laserfiche repository houses more than 10 million files, all easily searchable by authorized employees.
Moving toward a digital-first environment also made collaboration with outside parties easier. The paper-driven legacy supplier registration process was replaced with a Laserfiche electronic form and automated workflow. By digitizing and automating the process, the company eliminated lost paperwork and accelerated registration, improving the experience for both Tecnoglass employees and the company’s suppliers.
Using Laserfiche, Tecnoglass employees can now easily search and retrieve documents without having to step foot in a warehouse. This has resulted in faster decision making, as well as a faster response times to internal and external audits — such as those related to Sarbanes-Oxley Act, ISO standards and the company’s Authorized Economic Operator certification, for which Tecnoglass has committed to both physical and IT security and safety standards throughout its supply chain by meeting requirements set forth by the Colombian Tax and Customs National Authority (DIAN).
“Laserfiche has helped tremendously with the company’s compliance with legal and industry requirements. Having the search functions at our fingertips has eliminated headaches for many of our employees, and automating processes has eliminated repetitive, error-prone manual tasks like data entry, allowing employees to focus on more productive work.”
—Tecnoglass General Counsel Andrea Zambrano
Accelerating Across the Enterprise
The company’s success with Laserfiche continues to spread throughout the organization since initial implementation. Additional departments have automated key processes including accounts payable, supplier updates, correspondence management, user profile confirmation and document loan control.
“Departments that have benefited from the implementation of Laserfiche include: purchases, treasury, accounting, document management, foreign trade, warehouse and internal control, all of which mainly needed a solution that allowed them to optimize time, space and the fulfillment of obligations to third-parties,” said Zambrano. “We have created and opened up new channels of communication with third parties, such as our suppliers. We’re now able to notify suppliers when we have an issue with a document or bill — prevent billing errors and delays — and we give our suppliers more convenient methods for updating data online.”
Tecnoglass’s Laserfiche implementation has created a more integrated work environment, where processes are standardized and transparent, enabling the company’s management team to more easily optimize resources and personnel. Employees and departments are accountable, which has led to better collaboration and better communication, even with third parties.
“Adopting Laserfiche technology opened up new possibilities for our organization that were previously dismissed,” said Zambrano. “It turns out we just did not have the foundation and practices in place that would enable more innovation. Once we started implementing automated workflows, we eliminated silos and our operations became more connected. We continue to work on integrating workflows and centralizing data and processes. Laserfiche is an extremely powerful tool for our organization.”
WORM storage is data archiving technology that prevents information from being edited or deleted, while allowing it to be read as many times as needed. An acronym for “write once, read many”, WORM enables businesses to lock down records to ensure that no unauthorized changes can been made.
Organizations primarily use WORM storage to comply with recordkeeping regulations, address information security concerns and ensure data integrity. For example, in the event of an SEC audit, companies can use WORM to prove that they have not altered or tampered with the records in question.
The costs associated with poor data management are high, and proper utilization of WORM storage can help mitigate the risk of incurring expensive fines. Today’s financial firms risk millions of dollars’ worth of fines and lawsuits if they do not meet regulatory requirements.
For example, FINRA fined 12 firms a total of $14.4 million in 2016 for failing to protect financial records in a format that prevents alteration. From a business perspective, unsecure, lost and inaccurate data will lessen credibility with, and increase skepticism from, current and future clients. Additionally, corrupted data can cause businesses to make strategic decisions or even change the direction of the firm based on incorrect or skewed information.
Making Compliance Simple
Firms focused on improving records retention should consider using WORM-compliant technology to add an extra layer of security to their records.
A few industries that can especially benefit from using WORM storage include:
Education: Student records have strict retention rules for how long they’re stored. Storing records in a WORM-compliant format can ensure you’re not editing or moving a student’s records around—so when it’s time to dispose of records or present them upon request, you know you’re doing so accurately and in good faith.
Healthcare: The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) has its own set of retention rules for the healthcare industry. These rules, combined with the need to ensure patient privacy, makes WORM storage an attractive option, as it can help in efforts to limit access to and support retention of sensitive information.
Financial Services: As mentioned before, SEC Rule 17a-4 requires by law that wealth management firms such as broker-dealers use specific technology for their records, including WORM-format. In addition, as of 2022, audit trails are now an alternative for broker-dealers to preserve records. For this industry, the consequences for non-compliance can be damaging to their reputation and their bottom line due to expensive fines.
There are two ways to implement WORM storage in your organization. The first way is through hardware, using tape or another type of medium that permanently keeps data, making the only deletion method physical destruction of the WORM storage device.
Still, with many solutions moving to cloud and SaaS services, choosing specific hardware can be problematic. However, many providers of these services now provide software-defined WORM solutions that provide the flexibility of software with the strictness, security and indelibility expected from a hardware-based WORM solution.
Whether you use software or hardware to support your compliance goals, the concept works in much the same way. When someone adds data to a WORM drive, it stays there indefinitely. The idea that you cannot edit a WORM drive’s data only applies to data already stored there—the potential to add new data is always there, provided you have enough storage space left on the drive.
Figure 1: WORM storage allows authorized users to add to or read information from a device, but not delete or edit its existing information.
As you can see in the diagram above, it’s quite simple—user A adds data to the drive, then user B, then user C. Now, users A, B and C can presumably read all the data on the drive—barring any other security settings or access rights—but none of them can edit what’s already there. It’s read-only for everyone involved. This way, when auditors or administrative staff want to pull up retained records, they have the peace of mind of knowing the records are in the same condition as they came in when they entered their retention period.
A Worthwhile Solution
WORM storage, along with the right records management system can go far in assisting professionals in the financial, education, healthcare, and government industries meet their toughest compliance challenges.
For those in the financial services industry facing some of the strictest regulations, WORM storage can provide a secure and accurate system of record. Combining WORM storage with records management software can give broker-dealers additional tools to support broker-dealer compliance with SEC Rule 17a-4, such as the requirements for records retention, records quality and accuracy, audit reporting, and a designated third party.
Records management solutions and WORM storage can help broker-dealers and compliance-minded professionals across industries gain confidence and peace of mind in the face of stringent compliance requirements. With this confidence, they can better focus on meeting client needs and growing their businesses.
Established as part of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, SEC 17a-4 defines a set of records preservation and retention requirements for registered broker-dealers. SEC 17a-4 itself became part of the law in 1997, and in recent years, enforcement of this rule—along with the consequences for violating it—have increased significantly.
Outlined in this 14-page PDF released by the SEC, the implications of 17a-4 can mean a lot for your business and its bottom line. Read below to see how you can step up to the challenges presented by each section of 17a-4, saving your organization time, money and staff resources:
Retention Periods – Rule 17a-4 (a), (b), (c), (d)
This section of the rule outlines records retention requirements for today’s broker-dealers. It requires that firms retain most of their records for 3-6 years, whether they’re hard-copy documents or electronically stored information (ESI) such as emails.
Figure 1: The standard records management lifecycle for most broker-dealer record.
To meet these requirements, most organizations need a way to classify and track records throughout their lifecycle, from the date they’re created, through their time in use, their retention period and eventually final disposition or archival. They’ll also need a solution that is able to put all these documents in the right place.
This is where document and records management tools come in. A document management system can help you gain control over all the different types of information you need to keep track of and even capture your paper documents for storage in a digital format. Many records management solutions offer the ability to monitor record lifecycles and notify you when records need to move from one stage to the next. In addition, advanced records management systems allow you to define retention schedules and policies at the folder level, saving records managers from having to store or move records through their lifecycles one at a time.
Audit Trail OR Write-Once-Read-Many (WORM) – Rule 17a-4(f)(2)(ii)(A)
Audit Trail
SEC recently made its first changes to Rule 17a-4 in 2022. The most significant change is allowing broker-dealers to adopt an electronic recordkeeping system that meets either the audit trail requirement OR the WORM requirement. It should provide a complete time-stamped audit trail to preserve electronic records in a manner that permits the recreation of an original record if it is altered, overwritten or erased; defined terms extracted from the final rule include:
All modifications to and deletions of a record or any part thereof
The date and time of actions that create, modify or delete the record
If applicable, the identity of the individual(s) who created, modified or deleted the record
Any other information needed to maintain an audit trail of each distinct record to ensure the authenticity and reliability of the record will permit the re-creation of the original record and interim iterations of the record
The audit trail requirement particularly applies to final records required pursuant to the rules, in lieu of drafts or iterations of records that would not otherwise be required to be maintained and preserved under Rule 17a-3 and 17a-4 or Rules 18a-5 and 18a-6. Moreover, the electronic recordkeeping system used by the firms must automatically verify the completeness and accuracy of its processes for storing and retaining records electronically.
WORM-compliant
WORM-format has been a long-time exclusive requirement for broker-dealers to preserve record in a non-rewritable, non-erasable format. This means that once a firm finish using a record and is ready to put it into retention, they must retain the record in a format where it cannot be changed, moved or deleted.
The best part of using records management software to assist with this is that you can support record content integrity even before the record enters retention. Even when actively working with files, a good records management solution can set up read-only restrictions for particular records, which can assist in preventing their modification, relocation, and deletion. Read this blog post to learn more how to create a WORM environment with cloud and SaaS solutions to support compliance.
Quality and Accuracy of Recording Process – Rule 17a-4(f)(2)(ii)(B)
In addition to the setting standards for records themselves, SEC Rule 17a-4 also requires that broker-dealers “verify automatically the quality and accuracy of the records process.” This means that you must preserve data integrity and quality for examination by auditors. The right records management solution would have the tools necessary to keep logs of these processes and catch input or output errors. To preserve business continuity—in case of disaster recovery or otherwise—some solutions even automate the process of data replication and creating backups. Most importantly, the best solutions detect file corruption, degradation of records and file tampering, which gives you peace of mind that you’re presenting auditors with up-to-date, valid and accessible information.
Serialized Original and Duplicates – Rule 17a-4(f)(2)(ii)(C)
SEC 17a-4 further requests that broker-dealers serialize their electronic recordkeeping system and time-date this media for its required retention period. This makes it easy for auditors to identify records and establish a timeline for each record as it goes through its lifecycle.
To assist broker-dealers in fulfilling this request, the right records management solution can make records easy to identify and place chronologically. Many of them assign unique numeric entry IDs to each record, and then store the record’s entry date and last modified date in the system. Some records management solutions even allow you to locate records by their assigned entry ID, their creation date, or any retention policies that may pertain to them. This search-ability makes it easy to generate reports that auditors can review.
Downloading Indexes and Records – Rule 17a-4(f)(2)(ii)(D)
To comply with SEC 17a-4, a firm’s electronic recordkeeping system must “have the capacity to readily download and transfer copies of a record and its audit trail (if applicable) in a human readable format and in a reasonable usable electronic format, as required by the staffs of the Commission and other relevant securities regulators” under Rule 17a-4(f). This means that the records management solution you choose needs to make its records downloadable in an accessible format.
A robust records management solution will allow you to download files in a variety of formats, from TIFF to PDF, or in its original, unedited format. Those that are a step above may even permit the download of multiple records in an archive file format such as a ZIP file. These download format options give auditors flexibility in how they view records, which minimizes the risk of having format readability issues that could delay the audit process.
Easily Readable – Rule 17a-4(f)(3)(i)
Further emphasizing the need for auditors to be able to read from your records, 17a-4 states that firms “at all times have available, for examination by the staffs of the Commission and self-regulatory organizations of which it is a member, for immediate production of records preserved by means of the electronic recordkeeping system and for producing copies of those records.” Similar to how 17a-4 (f)(3)(i) establishes format readability, this part of the rule focuses on the need for firms to give auditors the proper mediums to review records.
An accessible records management solution will give auditors choices on how to view your records, whether it’s from a desktop, web-based or mobile application. Others will go a step further and include built-in document viewers and the ability for authorized users to export documents, giving auditors even more options.
Facsimile Enlargement – Rule 17a-4(f)(3)(ii)
This section declares that a broker-dealer must “be ready at all times to immediately address the production of records” that may be requested by the governing authorities. This statement takes the issue of readability in a direct way—it demands that broker dealers not only make files accessible, but also ensure that auditors can physically read the files with ease.
Records management software can offer zoom functionality to assist in meeting these demands, and even support record printing for more scrutinizing review.
Separate Duplicate Copies – Rule 17a-4(f)(3)(iii)
According to amended SEC Rule 17a-4, broker-dealers must use “either a backup recordkeeping system or other redundancy capabilities”.
This requirement requires firms to preserve a second set of records that can be accessed and examined if the primary electronic recordkeeping system storing the primary set of records is disrupted, malfunctions or otherwise becomes inaccessible. Other redundancy capabilities, for example, creating two copies on an optical disk, using a different server or group of servers to store a duplicate set of records. A proper records management solution can assist you in efforts to both preserve business continuity and meet compliance requirements by replicating contents across multiple geographic locations and monitoring data storage for durability.
Organize and Index Original and Duplicate Records – Rule 17a-4(f)(3)(iv)
Under 17a-4, firms are required to “organize and index accurately all information maintained on both original and any duplicate system and maintain information necessary to locate records maintained within the system.” This means that as a broker-dealer, you need to have information searchable and easy to locate.
Most records management software solutions allow you to search records by keywords or an ID number, and index scanned documents using optical character recognition (OCR). The best solutions even allow you to share links to records securely in custom-made reports. These features can give auditors a quick reference of records presented to them, with the added ability to search for records if necessary.
Audit System – Rule 17a-4(f)(3)(v)
This section requests that broker-dealers “must have in place an audit system providing for accountability regarding inputting of records required to be maintained and preserved and must at all times be able to have the results of the audit system available for examination”. Simply put, broker-dealers need an audit trail that keeps track of changes made to records and other activities taking place where records are stored.
Records management software can offer extensive auditing capabilities to track system activity. Some solutions even allow you to view, filter and sort audit information and export it in the form of convenient reports. In addition, the right records management software would attempt to keep track of what has happened to a record, even after it has entered disposition or finished its lifecycle.
Access to Records by Regulators – Rule 17a-4(f)(3)(vi)
According to SEC Rule 17a-4, upon request, a broker-dealer must provide prompt access to records and indexes stored on electronic recordkeeping system. This means that even if you stop using a records management solution for any reason, the SEC may still ask you for the records stored on the associated system.
Still, the best software vendors out there will offer to keep your data after you stop using their services, at least for a short time. This can give you the peace of mind that you’ll be able to present information to auditors when they request it.
A Comprehensive Package
With the right records management solution, you can make meeting the compliance challenges presented by SEC Rule 17a-4 a breeze. However, to achieve the best results, you need to choose the right records management software that fits your needs and the requirements set by auditors.
Organizations are mandated by law to retain confidential client, employee and company information for a minimum period of time. So, what do you do once a document outlives its purpose?
Holding onto such a document for too long poses a security risk, and can put your business in non-compliance with current privacy regulations.
Records retention is a practice by which organizations maintain confidential records for set lengths of time, and then employ a system of actions to either redirect, store or dispose of them. Records can be considered evidence of a decision or transaction that took place within your business operations, and should be kept as long as required—or for as short a period as necessary–by regulatory, legal or business governance.
The record lifecycle encompasses the following phases: the creation, distribution, active storage, inactive storage and retention, disposition and archiving of an organization’s records.
For example, in the U.S., many accounting and tax documents are kept for up to 7 years as mandated by IRS requirements. Depending on your industry regulations or business needs, you may choose to keep certain records longer, or even store them in a different manner than other records you maintain.
Records retention is driven by a system of policies, scheduling and infrastructure that enable administrators to comply with governing regulations, laws and business best practices.
Here are three major components of a successful records retention strategy:
1. A retention schedule
A retention schedule is a system of classification that standardizes the different types of records your organization manages and how long they need to be kept. A successful retention schedule is routinely updated to ensure that rules for records retention included in the schedule comply with all laws and regulations which pertain to them.
Here is a simplified example of a retention schedule for a higher education institution, which includes the codes, document types, retention periods and mediums of the records in question.
2. Retention policies
Records retention policies govern the classification, storage, preservation and destruction of all records in an organization. These policies help to ensure that important records are not mishandled, and that temporary records are discarded promptly in an effort to reduce risk and keep the records management system clean, coordinated and secure.
Powerful records management systems enable organizations to monitor records throughout their lifecycle, specifying when a record was originally filed and when it will be eligible for destruction.
3. Records infrastructure
Records are only as good as they are accessible. The records your organization maintains should be easy to search, retrieve and update at all times. Whether preparing for an audit, accessing client information, or making changes to important documents, having a centralized, organized, digital records management system in place ensures that your retention schedule and policies are easily and consistently followed.
Easy-to-use records management systems allow organizations to filter records searches based on whether the record is eligible for cutoff, eligible for disposition or in need of review.
Qualities of a successful records management system should include:
Configurable security: Levels of access to specific documents or folders should be easy to manage by records administrators, to aid in security for clients and your business.
Simple search and retrieval: Records should be accessible immediately upon request, whether by business professionals, or via public portals for clients.
Centralized storage: Whether on-premises or in the cloud, records should be organized in an intuitive, easy-to-maintain digital repository.
Intuitive audit support: Often it’s as (or more) important to be able to demonstrate that your organizations followed regulations correctly after the end of the retention period than being able to find something during it. A system that supports the auditing process can be invaluable in any organization.
Automated records management processes: The life-cycle of any type of records should be tracked and maintained with process automation technology built into the infrastructure, resulting in seamless, transparent storage, access, archiving and classification of any and all records in an organization.
“The best records management solution is one you don’t need to think about,” says Justin Pava, Principal Technical Product Manager at Laserfiche. When considering your records infrastructure, be sure to prioritize simplicity, ease of use and reliability in your records management system.
Records retention is a necessary part of a successful records management practice, supported by a system of rules, regulations and organization the helps businesses run smarter.
To learn how digital records management supports compliance, transparency, security and ease of access, download the Ultimate Guide to Records Management.
Barranquilla is a cosmopolitan city and one of the largest ports in the northern Caribbean Coast region of Colombia. Rapid urban growth and economic development has transformed the region into a tourism hub and an active business community.
The Barranquilla Chamber of Commerce provides its services to over 72,000 companies that operate in northern Colombia and is tasked with fielding thousands of registry-related requests annually. To help support the area’s dynamic development, the chamber used Laserfiche to digitally transform its operations by giving affiliates the ability to access key services online. The initiative met government requirements and initially eliminated approximately $50,000 in annual costs related to document scanning. Additionally, the chamber’s use of Laserfiche created new opportunities to offer affiliates more convenient, faster online services by automating other core processes.
Changing With the Times
While the Barranquilla Chamber of Commerce prides itself on promoting the competitiveness and economic prosperity of the region, in 2015, the chamber’s processes were not keeping pace with the area’s accelerated growth. That year, the Colombian government mandated that chamber services must be made accessible online in order to meet modern business expectations and enable the country to compete in today’s global economy.
“One of our biggest customer service challenges was to take our traditional services on-site and make them available over the internet,” said Jorge Andon, public registry lawyer for the chamber. “We needed a platform that could satisfy the registry related requests of our more than 70,000 affiliates in a fast and safe way.”
The chamber’s services include enabling citizens to make requests related to the legal creation of businesses, modifying and renewing company information, and dissolving companies.
Previously, to access these services, citizens were required to travel or mail in the necessary documents to the chamber’s office in Barranquilla. For example, to create a company, citizens need to file documents—such as statutes of incorporation and standardized forms—which are received and reviewed by a lawyer who ensures they meet legal requirements. If they do, the documents are registered and the company is created. If information was incomplete or did not meet legal requirements, the process was delayed—documents had to be returned to requesting party, revised as needed and re-submitted to the chamber.
“Document returns constituted around 20% of our operation, which added up to many working hours,” Andon said.
In addition to streamlining these requests, the chamber also needed to make certain documents available online as part of the government’s initiative to increase access to public information.
After assessing a number of solutions, the chamber selected Laserfiche, which would enable the organization to digitally transform how it provides services while offering a centralized place to manage documents and make them available to the public. “Laserfiche met our expectations in regards to information security and integration with other core applications,” Andon added. “We also found that Laserfiche is characterized by innovative solutions in the field of document management software. Having a certified Laserfiche Solution Provider located in Barranquilla was another strong determinant.”
“As a Colombian-based business with many customers, we understand the challenges the Barranquilla Chamber of Commerce faced,” said Jaime Barrios Perez, CEO of Gestech, the Laserfiche Solution Provider that supports the chamber’s implementation. “Laserfiche is a great platform for the chamber since it meets the organization’s current digital transformation needs, while also enabling them to create new solutions and maintain scalability for future growth.
Streamlining Services for Affiliates and Employees
The chamber brought its paper-based registration process online by building a Laserfiche public portal, where affiliates can submit electronic forms to register for business licenses, update operational information and submit other requests.
Rather than having to fill out pages of paperwork and produce physical copies of documents for chamber employees to scan, affiliates can now log into the chamber’s online portal and complete a Laserfiche Form to request the desired service. There, affiliates can also upload documents related to their business’s public registry—such as articles of incorporation and bylaws; appointments of directors and administrators; or bankruptcy or liquidation documentation.
To streamline the process for chamber employees, the chamber used Laserfiche to design an automated workflow which routes information to a public registry lawyer for review. If documents meet legal requirements, the lawyer will approve them and Laserfiche will send the affiliate a tax and service bill, which can be paid online or on-site.
“The ability to request services online has brought an array of benefits for users, such as reduction in travel expenses, and reduced service response times,” Andon says.
Once payment is made, documents are inscribed in the public registry (performed by an application that is integrated with Laserfiche) and available to the public online through a Laserfiche portal. As part of the workflow, Laserfiche sends a notification letter to the affiliate once documents are inscribed. If documents don’t meet legal requirements, however, Laserfiche will notify the affiliate, and the system allows the affiliate to then upload corrected documents using the same filing number within one month.
“By reducing document returns, we also reduce reprocessing requests. As a lawyer, if I have a filing and I return it, then the chamber has to receive it again, and review it again, and scan it again,” Andon says. “Being able to reduce the percentage of documents returned is saving us time, effort and money.”
The automated process has dramatically accelerated the chamber’s response time, enabling better customer service.
“Some chambers of commerce take up to 10 to 15 days to process some registration requests and we take less than 24 hours to process them. Other chambers are now starting to look at us to see what we’re doing to solve these problems and deliver such fast service.”
—Jorge Andon, Barranquilla Chamber of Commerce Public Registry Lawyer
Growing Opportunity for Colombian Business
As a result of the Laserfiche solution, organization-wide savings include a reduction in employee time spent receiving, scanning and returning documents. The chamber has also enabled users to correct large documents without returning them by using Laserfiche’s version control function—which allows the organization to modify documents while keeping a record of changes as well as the intact originals. Improved process management has reduced the risk of complaints and consequential fines imposed by the regulatory commission.
Since the chamber’s success with affiliate service requests, it has implemented Laserfiche in almost every department, including accounting/finance, human resources, legal, operations, sales, executive, information technology, marketing and records management.
“The chamber saves approximately $50,000 per year as a direct result of our online services,” Andon says. “We have also seen increasing ROI at the organization-wide level that is yet to be determined.”
The automated processes have also enabled the chamber to become more data-driven. Using reporting and analytics features in Laserfiche, the chamber creates real-time reports on process health that have led to faster decision making, and improved customer service even further. This has led to reputational improvement of the organization at the national level.
“We implemented Laserfiche in the chamber for two particular reasons: to offer registration services online and to publish our public documents online so people could access them,” Andon explains. “But the benefits we received were much more than just that. Problems we’ve had in the chamber for years—we could solve them in just a couple of weeks. Designing and implementing processes in Laserfiche is so easy. If you can imagine it, you can do it.”
Laserfiche Solution Contributed By: Chad Rota, Supervisor, Records and Information Management, Westbank First Nation
Located in the Okanagan region of British Columbia, Canada, self-governing Westbank First Nation (WFN) is one of seven bands that comprise the Okanagan Nation Alliance. WFN has a membership of approximately 900 people and employs more than 200 staff to serve the nearly 10,000 residents living on Westbank reserve lands.
Before Laserfiche, WFN used paper forms to process employee change notification requests. These forms started out as PDF forms and were printed, signed, and passed around the various departments through inter-office mail. This process was inefficient, time consuming, and prone to lost and/or wasted paper: if any update needed to be made to the request, the process had to start all over.
Laserfiche Forms Built a Lot More Flexibility into the Process
Instead of filling out a PDF form and printing it, an employee now fills out an electronic form. The employee can select the appropriate manager to whom the request should be routed. If the employee reports directly to the director of operations, then the application is routed directly there and skips all the other approval levels in between.
The employee can select from multiple status change options
At each level of approval, the approver has the option of sending the request to another manager, directly to human resources, or back to the submitter with required changes.
The approver can make one of three decisions before submitting the form
Each request can be reviewed and approved by one or multiple people. Once all managers have viewed and approved it, the request is vetted by human resources and then sent to the director of operations for final approval. Throughout the process, the request can be sent back to either reviewer or submitter at any time to make changes. Each reviewer can also make some changes to the form while reviewing it.
Finalized requests are stored in Laserfiche, and Forms sends an automatic notification to payroll. A payroll employee checks that all documentation in the folder is compiled properly and makes the appropriate changes to the payroll system. Once finished with their task, the payroll employee launches a Laserfiche Workflow business process which routes the documents to the appropriate places in the repository for storage, names them correctly, and applies the relevant security tags based on the document type.
This workflow also uses the Employee Number field to look up information in the human resources database to populate the rest of each document’s fields.
Laserfiche Workflow moves the documents to the right folders and applies the appropriate security tags. Click to view larger in a new window.
This Workflow business process is used to move, rename, and apply security to all human resources documents, not just change requests. WFN processes over 50 human resources documents every week, and this workflow ensures that the human resources portion of the repository remains organized and secure.
Employees Can Access All Forms and Documents through a Custom Portal
In order to help employees find the appropriate document or form to fill out, the staff at WFN created a custom staff resources portal. This portal is actually a Laserfiche form with the Submit button hidden. The button is hidden by making its color and text blend in with the background.
The staff resources page is created in Laserfiche Forms
The color of the Submit button can be changed in the Themes tab in Laserfiche Forms
Employees specify what they would like to do by checking the appropriate boxes. This opens up other fields which contain links to the appropriate Laserfiche WebLink pages or Laserfiche Forms, including any directions.
Different options appear based on what was checked for the first question
Since launching the staff resources page, the records management and information technology teams have received significantly fewer emails and calls with questions regarding where to access specific forms. Employees are able to find everything they need on their own. Since this portal is created using Laserfiche Forms, it can be easily modified and updated with any new available resources.
“The new portal has eliminated a lot of mystery and curiosity around Laserfiche. Users can now access everything in one place. This has led to a lot more independent Laserfiche users,” says Chad Rota, Supervisor, Records and Information Management.
Moving forward, WFN plans on exploring an integration between its payroll system and Laserfiche using Laserfiche Connector to help automate various human resources processes even further.
