Whether you are a manager at an organization or owner of a company, you have to be careful and vigilant in every business process. When the time comes for document review it is the most important yet complicated and costly step in any business practice. However, there are steps you can take to simplify the document review process in your business and make it more efficient and effective.
As the document review process involves sensitive communications, it requires the expertise of a professional team to avoid any risk later on. Moreover, you want to start and end all the official matters on time without any imperfection. For that, your company needs a fast, effective, and cost-efficient system for the review of the documents.
Strategies to simplify the document review process
Given below are some of the useful tips for reviewing documents in a hassle-free way:
1. You must know the objective of the document
Before checking out any documentation you must know about the exact purpose and objective of the document. If you are not familiar with it, you will just waste your time and energy. Also, the goal of the review is not achieved in this way.
As business documents are a crucial part of any business, they decide its success and fate in many ways. Thus, any misconception or error in the review process can lead to serious outcomes. Moreover, you must know whether the documents are prepared by individuals or a team, handwritten or system generated. This will help you select the right strategy to accomplish the task.
2. You must be familiar with the goal of the review
● What will be the outcome of this review?
● Is it required for a production department?
● Is it needed for an investigation?
● Do you know what to do if the results are against the objectives? Whether you have to give the feedback mechanism or simply state the reason to the authorities?
● What will you do if the results are according to review objectives? How can you justify your point?
Before starting the review procedure, these points must be clear in the minds of reviewers. So that they can carry out the appropriate process without risk.
3. Use a Document Management System
Manual reviewing can be a tough and costly procedure that requires so much time and effort from reviewers. Mostly email attachments are used for the purpose that lowers the chances of successful document analysis.
You can use a Document Management System (DMS) instead. You will have the following perks while using DMS based solution:
● Your data is safe as only authorized individuals can access it.
● The documents are safe from disasters like floods and fires. In such cases, data can be restored without any loss.
● Less storage space is required.
● Better regulatory compliance.
● Reduced risk of cyber attacks and its resulting outcomes.
4. Hire an expert review team
Be careful while adding people to your review team. These are the individuals that will decide whether your result is productive or just in vain. Consult with the experts about the case. Discuss the strategy you want to use along with the time and cost of the process.
A team of expert lawyers, legal executives, and paralegals will help you get the most out of the document review process. You can not only reduce the overall cost but also get the best productive results while having a qualified team.
5. All the reviewers must keep in touch during the review process
The team of reviewers must communicate with each other during the whole procedure. This will help them sort out any issue in between the process without compromising the main outcome. In this way speed of the process is also enhanced resulting in fast and effective results. Furthermore, any problem that arises in the process is easy to sort out as soon as possible without creating more trouble.
For this purpose, many tools and software are available. Such instant messaging tools allow the team members to communicate with each other. They can also keep in touch with the Project Manager and Quality Control Manager. Thus receiving updates and following the instructions become easy for the team members.
6. Use the latest technology
Use of the appropriate technology at right time can take your job to the next level. A lot of technological options are available for the documentation review. These can lessen the time, effort, and cost of the whole procedure to great extent. Before using or leveraging the technology, you and your review team must be familiar with its functionality and other concerns.
Some useful mechanisms used in document examination are as follows:
All the emails that are part of the same conversation are set into a group that is visible to every team member. The messages are arranged in a way that the longest and comprehensive one is shown on the top ignoring the redundant ones. This saves the time of reviewers in checking the data and ultimately reduces the overall time of review up to 30 to 40%.
It is somehow opposite to the above-mentioned technology of message threading. Similar messages are grouped so that individuals can check the similarity of different contexts and take action accordingly.
With this feature, you can differentiate the whole document into most and least likely responsive parts. In this way, we can simply avoid the least important data and reduce the review time. The principle behind predictive coding includes statistical review, concept and fact-based searching, and other algorithms.
7. Fact-checking & Final proof
Last but not least is the final proof and fact-checking step. Once you have reviewed the documents, proofread them for any misspellings, grammatical errors, and facts used. Take care of jargon and use them appropriately.
When you are reviewing the documents online or on the computer, scan them through an antivirus before submitting the final document. This will lower the risk of data loss in case of any virus. For this, there are a lot of antivirus applications available or you can simply check the website for the best antivirus support.
Reviewing documents itself is not a complex process. But it requires an effective strategy and a qualified team of reviewers to accomplish the task smoothly. Keep in mind the above-mentioned tips that might help you review documents especially in large business organizations.
