What is Compliance Management Software? 

Compliance management software is critical in designing a compliance framework for meeting corporate objectives, organizational policies, applicable laws, and such business regulations and security policies. Compliance management tool helps standardize operational processes and communication as per the regulations applicable in a particular industry.

Regulatory compliance management software performs incident management to mitigate risks associated with improper document management. It helps with managing evidentiary documents and vendor contracts. Organizations can comply with all legal requirements and serve their employees and customers as per the norms.

What are the different types of compliance in India?

The different types of compliances are based on the kind of industry you are operating. Some compliances have general applicability while others are meant for specific industries like health and finance.

In India, there are majorly these types of compliances:

1. Financial Compliance 
2. Corporate Compliance 
3. Labour Compliance 

Some of the compliance examples for finance and corporate bodies are: 

• The Companies Act 2013 
• The Income Tax Act 1961 
• The Foreign Exchange Management Act 1999 
• The Goods and Services Tax Act 2017. 
• The Reserve Bank of India guidelines 
• The Banking Regulation Act 1949 
• The Securities and Exchange Board of India 1992 guidelines 
• Labour law examples are: 
• The Industrial Disputes Act 1947 
• The Employees State Insurance Act 1948 
• The Factories Act 1948 
• The Employees’ PF and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 1952 
• The Payment of Bonus Act 1965 
• The Contract Labour Act 1970 for Regulation & Abolition 
• The Child Labour Act 1986 for Prohibition & Regulation 

Major Compliance Management Software Functions 

Managing compliance requirements is necessary to avoid legal issues and penalties. A legal compliance software is majorly used for the following functions:

• Creating a list of regulatory compliance requirements
• Managing citations, permits and policies at a single platform
• Determining the regulations for every department within your organization
• Creating a pool of people who would ensure the adherence to permit and policies
• Generating automatic alerts for non-compliant processes
• Addressing non-compliance in real-time
• Identifying updates in terms of regulatory obligations
• Planning for the upcoming tasks that would help in staying compliant with regulations. 

Compliance Management Software Features 

Audit Management: Systematic workflows with compliance tracking tools help identify compliance issues and generate real-time reports for auditing purposes.

Regulatory intelligence: Compliance management tools track XML and RSS feeds to track the latest regulatory standards. Existing policies can be modified accordingly.

Conflict management: Compliance management tools detect any chance of the conflict of interest in trems of the employee trading or gifts.

Fraud management: Regulatory compliance management software ensures that fraudulent activities like bribery and anomalies in vendor payments never go unnoticed. The software regularly records and reports these to prevent the fraud of every kind.

Process visualization: Compliance management system software offers flowchart and mapping tools for visualizing processes for seamless and collaborative activities. The application also supports the remapping and dissecting of such processes.

Compliance reporting: Compliance management tools produce an array of compliance reports and data extracts for making the right business choices. It ensures adherence to KPIs across different processes and generates an auto alert for any compliance issue.

Controls monitoring: Regulatory compliance management software helps create an incident escalation process and document the control in the form of a centralized catalog.

Advantages of Compliance Management Software

Compliance management system software is required for minimizing the risk of legal issues and ensures compliance with the latest regulatory policies. It also offers other benefits like:

Reduced legal hassles: Every business has to comply with established government, social, environmental, financial and such policies. Compliance requirements can be fulfilled and fines, penalties or lawsuits can be avoided with legal compliance software.

Enhanced process efficiency: Compliance management solutions document and store information related to external/internal audits, evaluations and feedback solicitations. This information proves critical anytime a business decides to make changes in its existing workflow.

Compliant & informed decision making: Regulatory compliance management software helps escalate scenarios related to financial and legal processes so that they can be immediately assigned to the concerned officers for quick action.

Positive brand reputation: Compliance tracking software helps in creating an edge over your competitors. Your company's reputation gets a boost when your customers get to know that your business sticks to environmental and employee welfare codes.

Effective risk management: Compliance management system software sends alerts about inconsistencies with respect to regulations & policies. The software makes sure that such incidents and issues are addressed immediately.

Bird Eye View of Regulatory Measures: Compliance tracking software provides analytics and reports for checking overdue tasks, compliance levels and charts of risks.

Types of Compliance Management Software 

All-Purpose Compliance Management Platforms

This kind of compliance management tool is designed for general usage across multiple industries. All-purpose compliance management software helps with monitoring risks, performing due diligence, undertaking change management and generating compliance reports.

Industry-Specific Compliance Management Tools

This type of compliance management tool is designed for specific industries using their specific commercial or legislative requirement. It could be for health, finance, or any other industry.

Government, Risk and Compliance Software

GRC software offers a strategic framework for enterprise risk and compliance management. This type of compliance tracking tool is also used for aligning corporate strategies with the latest compliance risk standards. GRC software helps with IT governance and internal audit processes and ensures minimal operational risk.

How to Choose the Right Compliance Management Software

Legal compliance management software offers several modules for auditing business associates/vendors, checking compliance levels, viewing chart of risks & highlighting pending tasks. Other parameters for making the right choice for compliance management software are:

Data safety & security: Compliance tracking tools need to ensure complete security of system integrations and cross-network databases. Make sure that the software offers adequate data security, a lack of which could cost you your entire business.

Integration Capabilities: Integration with CRM, HRM, research and trade systems helps save costs and ensures operational efficiency. Such integration capabilities are therefore a must in the compliance management tool that you select.

Business requirements: Some compliance management solutions cater only to specific industries like health and finance while many others are built for general use. Create a list of your specific business requirements, issues and activities to see which solution is the best. You can also ask software vendors for free demos.

Compliance requirements: Every business has a specific compliance requirement. Make sure that you check what your specific legislative, financial, policies and regulations are to select the right compliance management software accordingly.

Security framework management: A compliance management tool should be able to handle all types of security frameworks, then be it NIST, HIPAA or any other.

Volume level: Ensure that the compliance management system software helps you stay updated with all types of compliance programs, whether simple or complex.