Electronic Archiving with MAPPING

What is electronic archiving?


Compliance with Regulatory Requirements - Around the world, government regulatory requirements are changing and these changes lead to greater demand for data to be online and rapidly accessible. The data specified in a wide range of U.S. and international regulations must be tracked, protected and secured with accessibility requirements defined as well. Among the regulations affecting data storage and protection are: SEC 17a-4, GDPdU and G0BS (Germany), Electronic Ledger Storage Law (Japan), HIPAA, FDA 21 CRF Part 11 11MEDIS-DC (Japan), ISO 18501/18509, BSI PD0008 (UK), NFZ 42-013 (France), Canadian Uniform Electronic Evidenc Act, AIPA (Italy), Sarbanes-Oxley Act, PRO Government Standard (UK), European Union Regulations on Personal Data Processing and others.

The ability to use digitalized documents as proofs depends on the
degree of reliability of the archiving system!

  • Electronic archiving is predicated on 3 main criteria: readability, content stability, and operation traceability.
  • A good Electronic Archiving System (EAS) requires data durability, integrity, security, and traceability.

 
Why Standards?
The objective of the different data storage and protection standards is to comply with evidentiary regulatory requirements applicable in various countries.

  • It is important to have such standards (because in many cases there are no law articles on the subject) to be able to apprehend the different needs, the environment, etc.
  • A compliance audit of the solution will focus on technical, functional, and organizational aspects.
Scope
archiving standard

Archiving accounting documents

When digital copies of accounting documents are available or received, they must be stored digitally. Keeping digital copies of the documents frees companies from the necessity to archive the same documents on paper. However, the following aspects must be considered carefully:

    
  •   Archiving and backup copies are not the same

  •   Traceability (timestamping)

  •   Digital signature

  •   Retention period

  •   Format and media

What is digital signing?

The digital signing process: « Any piece of digital information the definition and elaboration of which comply with authentication requirements »

  • personal identification number
  • private key
  • biometric data
  • etc.
digital signature
Digital signing as a means to
guarantee document integrity (content, origin)


A secure digital signature must:

  • be linked to the data to which it relates so that any further modification can be detected (personal identification number)
  • be associated with the signer only
  • be created by means over which the signer has exclusive control (private key)
  • allow identification of the signer (certificate: link between the public key and the identity of the signer)


electronic signature


And, when the sender and receiver don't know each other:

  • a third party will guarantee the identity of the sender and the link between the public key and their private key
  • the guarantee is based on a public key certificate
  • the third party is called the « certifying party »


The importance of software in the Electronic Archiving System (EAS)

A typical EAS covers 3 aspects:

  • Strategy (approach, policies)
  • Organization and implementation (processes, functions, life cycle, etc.)
  • Technical (formats, etc…)

There is no software or convincing functional approach designated by law. Instead, best practices are defined based on the adoption of data storage and protection standards applicable in various countries.


Which functions should archiving software include?


What about the paper in all of this?

  • One cannot produce an original electronic document from a paper document: only natively conceived electronic documents are considered original copies. Digitizing a paper document comes down to the same thing as making a copy of an original, same as a photocopy.

  • A document received on paper must be stored in its original form i.e. paper.

  • Paper documents don't always meet archiving requirements in terms of document integrity and durability.

  • So what should companies do: try and process all existing documents? All experts in the field unanimously say 'No':

    • - there are no specific advantages in doing that
    - this very often leads to the failure of the whole archiving project
    - in most cases the consulting rate is close to zero

The purpose of an archiving system is to access live documents!


The MAPPING solution

With our software, you can:

  • Time stamp your documents
  • Insert your electronic signature
  • Archive an exact copy of the document produced
  • Opt for a standard format such as PCL5
  • Choose the most appropriate storage media
  • Easily index your archival records for faster document retrieval
  • Reproduce documents accurately
  • Generate user profiles for looking up documents and define access permissions
  • Achieve integration with a third-party logging system
Our software suite will help your company comply with regulatory requirements applicable in your country!

In addition to meeting requirements in terms of data integrity, security, traceability, and durability, MAPOUT and MAPWEB - two components from the MAPPING software suite - offer the following advantages without requiring any additional processes to be triggered:

  •  The data stream is duplicated during processing (print, e-mail…)
  •  All processes can be automated

All your archival records at your fingertips

  • Through logical, automated indexing functionality
  • Our intuitive and user-friendly web interface makes it easy to look up documents
  • Once the document is retrieved and based on their profile, your users can open, email, print, or save a local copy with or without a watermark

Increased security

  • Your archives cannot be modified
  • User profiles and permissions make it easy to see who accesses which documents and performs which actions.