Document system assessment

Twelve questions about filing, versioning, ownership and approvals. It takes about four minutes, the result appears on this page, and no contact details are needed to see it.

This assesses how your documents are organised. It is not an assessment of what any document says or requires, and it produces no advice. Those questions belong to your own external adviser.

0 of 12 answered

If the person who wrote your commercial templates resigned tomorrow, who would own them?
Nobody. We would work it out when it came up.
A specific person, informally.
A named role, written down, with a change log.
How many sets of standard terms is your business currently sending out?
I am not sure, probably several.
One, as far as I know.
I know the number, because we counted.
Can you tell which version of your terms a particular customer signed, three years on?
No. We would compare documents and guess.
Probably, from the file name or the email.
Yes. The version is printed inside the document itself.
Where is the record of every departure from your standard terms you have agreed to?
In the contracts themselves, and in people’s memories.
Somewhere. A spreadsheet, or the account notes.
A variation register, maintained as part of closing the file.
Who is allowed to sign a supplier agreement that arrives as an email attachment?
Whoever received it, in practice.
There is a rule for large amounts, nothing for small ones.
An approval matrix that names roles and covers inbound documents.
If you lease premises, when does your next option exercise window open and close?
I would have to find the lease and read it.
The expiry date is in a calendar somewhere.
Every critical date is registered, with a lead time and a named owner.
If a buyer asked for a data room next month, how long would assembling it take?
Weeks, and it would consume everything else.
A week or two of concentrated effort.
The index already exists and is mostly populated.
For any given employee, what set of documents were they actually issued?
Whatever the person hiring had open at the time.
It is in their personnel file, if you go looking.
An issue log records the document, version and date for each person.
If a buyer asked who owns the work your contractors produced, could you show them?
No. We assumed it was ours because we paid for it.
For some of them. There is paperwork for the bigger engagements.
Yes. There is a register of contractors, work produced and documents held.
How long does your business keep its commercial documents?
Forever, everywhere. Nobody has ever deleted anything.
There is a policy somewhere, but nobody applies it.
A schedule with a period, a basis, an owner and a disposal method per class.
If your business has acquired another, whose set of commercial terms governs now?
Both are still in use. Nobody decided.
Ours, in principle. In practice people use what they know.
Decided class by class, recorded, with the retired set archived and identifiable.
Not applicable. We have not acquired anything.
Without looking, does your members register match the current ASIC extract?
I would have to check, and I suspect not.
Probably. The accountant keeps most of it.
Yes, and every change has a resolution and an instrument on file.

0 of 12 answered

How is your document layer actually running?