Audit-proof archiving in the cloud

This briefly outlines the requirements with which many companies are looking at document archiving in the cloud or in the SaaS model. But what do you need to consider before implementation?

Which archiving requirements apply to which types of business documents in the cloud?

There is no getting around it: Depending on the business processes and documents for which you use your cloud archive, the requirements also differ. Generally speaking, GDPR compliance* plays a central role in the HR field while compliance is important with respect to tax documents and their audit-proof archiving.

*General Data Protection Regulation

In addition, the solution for document archiving in the cloud must have the following functions:

• Auditability: archiving must be accessible and readable by the financial auditor at all times
• Identity management: Only defined and authorized employees and persons may have access to documents archived
• Enforced compliance: archiving must guarantee compliance with legal requirements as well as internal company policies
• Complete and reliable archiving: No business documents may be lost in transit or go missing from the archive
• Traceability: All changes in the archive must be logged and recorded
• Forgery protection: The archived business documents must be stored in the original form and be unalterable
• Loss prevention: Employees and third parties (e.g. financial auditors) must have read access to the business documents at all times

Beyond legal and compliance compliance, the archive is designed to provide you with a powerful document archiving solution. With the solution, you store your tax-relevant and retention-required data and documents easily, digitally and securely. Ideally, you should look for the longest possible business history when selecting a provider. This will give you a feel for whether the provider in question will still be available on the market tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, 10 years from now and longer. In addition, you should also make sure to rely on a managed services provider. This relieves the burden on your IT and at the same time you have a fixed contact person.

Say goodbye to paper filing – rely on document archiving

To get a step closer to electronic archiving, the archive should already create a digital archive for you after the first activation. For all your paper invoices, e-invoices and receipts, for the digital personnel file – with or without digital signature. A contemporary SaaS archive, such as easy archive, can process a good 500 different file formats out-of-the-box.

As soon as the system is ready for archiving, the archive application starts transferring your digital documents automatically. This makes it easier than ever for you to fulfill your documentation obligations and save time. You can access your archived documents and records at any time and from any location.

User-friendliness comes first, accessing the digital archive is no exception

Increased requirements in terms of user-friendliness have emerged in recent years. Above all, it is the younger user target groups who do not want to deal with applications that are complicated to operate. Sure, “getting things done!” And what good is an application for simple data archiving that gets in the way? Exactly.

Ideally, the SaaS archive is ready for you pre-configured before the first use and so you skip technical hurdles. This is typical for SaaS and cloud offerings. What’s particularly helpful here is that you are usually guided right from the start. A so-called archiving wizard takes care of document storage for you. You simply define the data sources and folders on your systems from which it automatically uploads files. Documents and files to be archived in electronic form, such as accounting-relevant files, are even filed automatically by the wizard afterwards. In this way, regular data backup takes place automatically. You and all authorized persons then have secure access to the data archived in the cloud at any time via common web browsers. Of course, the whole thing also has to work on smartphones/tablets and other mobile devices. Clear. What else do you need to pay attention to?

Audit-proof and easy to use

With easy archive, you archive in compliance with the law. The topic of auditability is one of the central aspects that you must pay attention to when selecting your archive storage. You no longer need to worry about this. Because audit-proof archiving guarantees the immutability of files once they have been archived, thanks to automatic versioning. This makes digital archiving and secure storage a breeze.

How does it work? The original file is always preserved in a tamper-proof manner. To prove audit compliance, a protected activity log records all file transfers, changes, and deletions. Digital receipts, documents and data should be protected against accidental deletion in the corporate archive. Ideally, this is ensured by a dual control principle, i.e. a defined second employee is automatically informed before the deletion process. Only an okay from this side allows the deletion.

Collaboration comes first, boosted by an intuitive interface

The web client of an archive should be intuitive to use. All authorizations – from user to administrator – should also be set up in the shortest possible time. Available user groups with different roles and rights are available. Typical for managed services: These user groups are provided, and you only need to classify your employees accordingly. Collaboration tools are available for documents and folders: Context-bound, archived documents and data can thus be provided with comments, notes for important tasks, etc. This simplifies the work in a SaaS solution immensely.

Search for and quickly find archived documents in the cloud

As soon as the documents are transferred to the document archive, powerful OCR software reads out the contents. This is a prerequisite for the automatic keywording of the individual archived documents. Basically, the keywords obtained represent a meta-level to the document – and all this is in the digital archive. Consequently, you can search for all terms in the document from the first moment using the full-text search. This way, any file can be found in no time.

Shortly after the initial setup, all authorized team members can access the stored receipts and documents, share documents and edit them together. Even mobile – because contemporary SaaS archives work not only on the desktop, but also as an app for iOS and Android.

Document archiving in the cloud: What you need to consider

• Audit-proof archiving with regard to correctness, completeness, security, protection against loss, traceability, etc.
• Automatic transfer and document archiving
• Unchangeable activity log to make all changes transparent
• Maximum data security thanks to storage in high-security data centers and encrypted transmission
• Integration into business processes, e.g. contract management, HR processes, etc.
• Automatic text recognition of archived documents thanks to integrated OCR function
• Full text search across folders
• Mobile data access via tablet, smartphone (iOS/Android), or laptop/PC
• Simultaneous access by multiple users
• Digital interfaces for convenient data transmission, for example during tax audits
• Option to export data from the archive: avoids vendor lock-in and thus dependency on an archive provider