Don’t Make these 3 IT Compliance Mistakes

Corporate organizations globally spend enormous time ensuring they comply with regulations from several different areas within their business. Ensuring your business is regulatory in all departments may be a lot of work, but it might lead to the company losing millions if it’s not done right. 

Most global businesses have a strategy to ensure 100% compliance with regulations and rules, but it’s only when you integrate your processes to improve overall coherence and profitability. 

Not being prepared for compliance visits from regulatory authorities might have disastrous outcomes for your business and your compliance officer. That’s why it’s so essential for your business to implement strategic and accurate compliance all around. 

Follow up on third-party Organizations

One of the first things on your agenda should be ensuring your supply chain, vendors, and any organizations you’re in partnership with are in accordance with precise compliance measures. Few businesses consider this, but when you do business with a company that is not compliant in its field, you may also suffer some consequences. Ensure you keep a detailed record of your business partners’ compliance overview so that you never fall into this trap. 

When you know you and your vendors are fully compliant in your relative industries, you have nothing to worry about regarding compliance and legal challenges. But, keep this trend going as compliance isn’t a single audit department; you should do compliance checks with third-party businesses at least once per year. This will ensure you never get caught out when you least expect to. 

Outdated Systems

Many companies experience a problem running their compliance processes on systems that were initially designed for primary purposes, making it much more tedious to analyze data and pull comprehensive reports. As a result, the entire process from A to Z becomes much more prolonged and requires more paperwork and admin, decreasing efficiency and increasing the risk of errors. 

A solution to this would be to update your systems or use a cloud-based platform to perform all the tasks you need it to, thereby eliminating human error and streamlining the data to a single source where it can be interpreted and stored. Of course, the first thing to do would be to speak to your IT consulting team about what would work best for your specific business and acquire a system that can do everything you need it to and more!

Underestimating Time and Resources 

Companies regularly enter into transition service agreements (TSA) with establishments offering support from an operational and reporting perspective. Whereas, from a financial and accounting point of view, these TSA’s typically cover consolidation, accounts receivable and payable, invoicing, and writing. 

They rarely focus on what is most important, compliance with local regulations, preparation of financial statements and tax returns. This means that businesses have to make provisions for their compliance as non-compliance comes with penalties, including; fines, cost, and in many cases, reputational damage. 

Once you resolve all your compliance needs, you can start focusing on other departments within your business. But, your compliance should remain your priority to avoid any regulatory challenges.