Accounting Finance:Document Imaging Management Policy

Using the DIMP

This Document Management Imaging Policy (DIMP) Manual has been designed primarily for online use. Excessive printing of the manual is discouraged in order to aid version control and minimize costs.
Virtually all content is self-contained within a subject ‘table’ to make amendment and/or extraction as easy as possible.
The primary means of document navigation is via the Table of Contents. However, navigation is aided by the use of ‘hyperlinks’. These dynamic links allow users to jump from one subject to a related subject (or punch out to the documents located on the Internet) by simply clicking on the link. A link is displayed by underlined blue text. To return to the original location (i.e. prior to using a hyperlink), a blue return arrow should appear towards the top left hand corner of the screen). A bookmark entitled ‘Return to Table of Contents’ has been included at the commencement of many sections to assist overall navigation. Specific topics of interest (within a sentence of paragraph) have been ‘bookmarked’ and their related subjects hyperlinked to further aid navigation and to link closely related issues.
All references to actual Federal/Provincial regulations are in bold red text.
The online version of the DIMP manual is to be maintained as ‘read only’.
Glossary of Terms has been included clarification purposes.

1.0 Introduction

1.1 Purpose

The purpose of this document is to detail the management policy and business processes to be applied in respect of documents:

Scanned and stored in the Gauss Document Management System (DMS)
Accessed, viewed and retrieved from the DMS
Destroyed as a result of scanning operations

In addition, this document is intended to demonstrate linkage to the principals required for compliance with Federal/Provincial legislation, including:

The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act
Food and Drugs Act (Good Manufacturing Guideline 2002 Edition)
Income Tax Act
Employment Insurance Act
Employment Standards Amendment Act
Limitation Act

1.2 Background

uniPHARM’s vision is to operate, as far as is practical, in a ‘paperless’ environment. The UNITY Project has provided the means for realising this vision through the installation of the Gauss Document Management System (DMS). This system provides uniPHARM with the capability to capture information from a wide range of paper based or electronic sources, store an electronic image of document, and allow images to be retrieved on an enterprise basis.

The benefits of the DMS are clear in terms of efficiency, space utilization and online access to information. However, in order to ensure that the DMS itself is operated efficiently and to comply with all legal requirements covering document imaging, retention, access and privacy, it is necessary to formalize polices through Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). This approach is consistent with those already in place in respect of GMP, Project Management and IT Management.

2.0 Ownership/Roles/Responsibilities

2.1 Background

The Personal Information Protection Act states that an organization is responsible for personal information under its control, including personal information that is not in the custody of the organization. The Act requires an organization to designate one or more individuals to be responsible for ensuring that the organization complies with the regulations.

2.1.1 Role Definition

The primary roles associated with the DMS are defined as follows: