Implementing an e-Archive in a Shared Service Center: Main Principles

The subject of document archiving is often ignored in the context of shared service centers (SSCs), and it’s not surprising: there are other, more dynamic topics, like accounting practices, KPIs, and other business processes. They resonate with all kinds of stakeholders and, in addition, bring real value to a business. So, it’s no wonder that archiving as part of a new SSC seems of little importance. Still, remember that an archived document is always stored to be found at some point.

Main Considerations for the Organisation of an e-Archive in SSC

1) Centralised Storage

After patchwork automation, an SSC is a good reason to finally assign a single place for document storage. Experience shows that if you don’t do it at once, you will still eventually get there, but with excessive spending and pain. Single document storage achieves several goals:

• Prompt collection of documents for audit purposes (it works both at the level of document details, which your ERP is perfectly capable of and at the document content level),

• A smaller number of information systems engaged in your processes,

• Fewer administration efforts for these systems.

  
  

In practice, “centralization” means a single electronic document management system that includes documents from all your business units, ERP systems or e-document exchange systems, and e-copies of paper documents. The system also serves to create documents as part of the SSC business processes.

2) Paper Sorted, or SSC, is digital only

When you implement a system, I recommend creating an e-copy of the document in your electronic document management system immediately (in the place of receipt), as well as filing and storing its paper copy in this place of receipt (or in a relevant business unit). If you collect and store all paper documents within your SSC, it will do you no good: such practice requires a lot of resources and is time-consuming.

It’s the same for HR documents: your HR specialists create documents, which are then printed out in a relevant business unit, signed by the employees, and then immediately stored. In some cases, your SSC can still store paper HR documents: such an approach can be more convenient if most of your employees work remotely or on a rotational basis.

3) Easy Access to Archive for Business Units

Even without accounting processes, your business units should still have access to their documents. It’s important to ensure it is both at the level of document details (like in your ERP system) and at the level of the document content. The easier the access and search are the higher your employees’ satisfaction with the SSC.

Another aspect of this “accessibility” is that an inexperienced user should be able to use the e-archive. We don’t know how a specific employee (as the e-archive user) who needs access to the documents is proficient with a computer. Before, he could go to the Accounting Department and receive a paper document, but the SSC doesn’t have enough consultants for such purposes. Correspondingly, your e-archive should have a user-friendly interface understandable to the majority of your users so that they can start using the system with no trouble.

While this aspect is not about the e-archive as such (it’s more about the type of the systems it’s based on), you should be aware that, more often than not, your e-archive is an electronic document management system that also plays the role of a self-service system for the HR SSC. In this case, your system should feature not only a user-friendly interface but also provide the possibility of use by employees who don’t have a computer in their workplace (for example, those who use chatbots, including voice-based ones or self-service terminals).

4) Two Levels of e-Document Storage

It’s not a principle per se: rather, an observation that allows for significant cost-saving. Using two levels for storage may seem illogical: we first knit everything together and then decompose again, but it actually serves a purpose.

The first level is your main working system (the storage environment) which stores documents from all sources and is used by all employees. Aside from document storage, the system is also used for business processes both within the SSC and in the interactions between the SSC and your business units.

It should be fast, always available, and recover easily in case of failures. This includes clusters, balancing, virtualization… In short, everything that makes you invest more in your hardware.

To simplify hardware requirements and make the system at least a bit cheaper, documents that are not relevant for your operations anymore (but must still be stored) can be transferred to another system.

This is when the second level comes to the stage: it’s your long-term storage. Documents come here from your working environment. They are not accessed by the employees all that often (but are still needed sometimes), and the availability requirements are much lower, which means that the hardware will also be simpler and cheaper.

Standard Organization of Archives in SSCs

So, all documents are used in your main system, which at the same time serves as your financial documentation archive. The system interacts with e-document exchange systems (sends and receives legal e-documents) and is integrated with the ERP and HRM systems. In addition, the main ECM system is used for the organization of your SSC business processes and for establishing interaction with your business units.

An employee enters paper documents into the main system. It can be an SSC employee (from the front office of one of your business units) or a business unit employee. He is also responsible for the organization of storage of the original paper documents.

When immediate storage is not required anymore, documents are transferred to the second level, i.e., into the long-term archive. Information about the change in the storage and the document identifier in the long-term storage should be kept in special files.

How to Plan an Archive in SSC

Ideally, you should choose the storage system and have at least a general understanding of which system will be able to process your documents online at peak loads and with high availability requirements at the early stages of the SSC design. It’s far easier to organize interaction with business units around a system at once than to retrain thousands of employees later.

However, there are certain situations when you already have an operating SSC without an e-archive. In this case, start with automating internal SSC processes and setting up ERP/HRM integrations and e-document exchange system integrations. It’s important that you re-adjust the SSC operation first and only then try setting up interaction with one or two business units. When it’s clear that everything works fine, integrate the remaining systems.