Compliance Automation Software

Compliance automation software provides organizations with an online platform to streamline and enhance compliance processes and forms part of a firms broader GRC (Governance, Risk, and Compliance) strategy. These tools help organizations establish and maintain an “obligations register,” consolidating a library of relevant regulations, legislation, policies, and procedures and their requirements, while monitoring compliance in real time. Compliance automation software achieves this through automated data collection via API integrations and structured workflows that enable regular checks and reporting within the platform.

Advanced compliance automation solutions integrate with third-party regulatory content providers to deliver real-time updates on regulatory changes. This allows organizations to identify the impacted people, policies, and procedures promptly and implement the necessary adjustments using built-in regulatory change management workflows.

These platforms often include pre-configured compliance monitoring workflows aligned with key compliance frameworks, such as ISO standards, GDPR, NIST, CPS 230, and PCI DSS. Additionally, compliance automation platforms automate critical compliance tasks, such as sanctions checks, supplier due diligence, and managing processes related to gifts and hospitality, anti-bribery and corruption, and conflicts of interest.

Comprehensive dashboards and reporting features provide a centralized view of compliance status, enabling teams to drill down into specific issues and proactively address potential compliance risks. Many compliance automation solutions also offer risk management functionality, allowing organizations to assess and manage the impact of compliance violations on their overall risk profile.

These tools automate tasks, analyze data, generate reports, and provide recommendations to ensure audit readiness. By centralizing compliance activities, automating risk analysis, and offering real-time insights, compliance automation software can enhance operational efficiency, minimize errors, and facilitate adherence to regulations and internal policies.

The key features of compliance automation software include:

• A digital, searchable obligations library to centralize compliance requirements in a single platform.
• Regulatory horizon scanning enabled through integrations with third-party content providers.
• Workflows to manage regulatory changes effectively.
• Prebuilt compliance frameworks to align with key regulations and standards such as SOX, GDPR, CPS 230, PCI DSS, various ISO standards and hipaa compliance automation.
• Best-practice templates for managing essential compliance processes, including:
  • Conflicts of interest
  • Whistleblowing and disclosures
  • Gifts and hospitality
  • Anti-bribery and corruption (ABAC)
  • Anti-money laundering (AML)
  • Sanctions checks
  • Information security compliance
• Automated compliance reporting with tools that generate reports based on real-time compliance data.

Compliance automation software enables businesses to centralize all compliance-related documents, policies, and procedures in a single, easily accessible repository. This ensures documentation is always up-to-date and readily available. The software automates the tracking and monitoring of compliance activities, generating regular status reports to provide a clear view of compliance performance. The best compliance automation software can be customized to meet the unique regulatory requirements of various industries and jurisdictions.

Some compliance automation platforms include automated regulatory horizon scanning to detect changes in regulations that may impact the organization. When a regulatory update is identified, built-in workflows automatically escalate, document, and facilitate the implementation of changes, ensuring affected policies, procedures, and processes are updated. Every step of the change management process is logged for audit readiness.

Cloud-based compliance automation solutions simplify compliance management and provide real-time insights to enhance compliance programs. Interactive dashboards highlight issues, monitor control effectiveness, and help identify and address potential compliance gaps proactively.

Compliance automation software is valuable for organizations across all sectors, as most are required to adhere to mandatory regulations or industry standards. Highly regulated industries such as financial services, healthcare, education, and gambling & gaming will find these platforms particularly advantageous. Businesses that follow ISO standards, such as ISO 27001, ISO 9001, ISO 14001, or ISO 31000, or those needing to comply with regulations like GDPR, SOX, NIST, PCI DSS, or HIPAA, can significantly enhance their compliance efforts with a compliance automation solution.

• Facilitates the maintenance of an up-to-date library of regulations, legal requirements, industry standards, and internal policies, enabling organizations to clearly understand and meet their obligations through effective regulatory compliance management.
• Provides best-practice workflows for essential compliance tasks, such as conflicts of interest, whistleblowing and disclosures, gifts and hospitality, anti-bribery and corruption (ABAC), anti-money laundering (AML), and sanctions checks.
• Enables organizations to report on compliance status and activities, with workflows designed to quickly address non-compliance issues.
• Offers structured processes that help teams align operations with compliance requirements with minimal training – enhancing collaboration, productivity, and decision-making.
• Supports adherence to key compliance frameworks using pre-configured templates and forms – creating a compliant and streamlined operating environment.
• Automates compliance processes with workflows, instant notifications, real-time reporting, and user-friendly dashboards that prioritize tasks and clarify regulatory obligations.
• Includes risk assessment templates to evaluate the risks of non-compliance, including risks within the supply chain, ensuring proactive compliance management.
• Teams can use the software to implement security controls and test them regularly to ensure there are no compliance violations or gaps – ensuring IT security compliance.

When choosing compliance automation solutions, firms must consider:

• Does the software integrate with other systems and data sources via APIs to ensure a single source of truth for compliance data?
• Does the compliance solution provide workflows for essential compliance tasks, such as conflicts of interest, whistleblowing and disclosures, gifts and hospitality, anti-bribery and corruption (ABAC), anti-money laundering (AML), and sanctions checks?
• Does the platform include best-practice capabilities for managing policies and procedures?
• Are there templates to automate your compliance with key frameworks like ISO standards, GDPR, SOX, NIST, PCI DSS, HIPAA, Basel III, COSO, and SOC?
• Is the software highly configurable, allowing you to customize out-of-the-box processes to meet your organization’s unique requirements – for comprehensive compliance automation that suits your individual needs?
• Do the platform’s security features align with your IT team’s standards, and is it certified to key cybersecurity standards like ISO 27001, SOC 1 & 2, and Cyber Essentials?
• Does the solution include regulatory horizon scanning by integrating with regulatory content providers to deliver live updates on regulatory changes?
• What reporting capabilities does the platform offer, and can they meet your internal and regulatory reporting needs?
• Does the tool include additional GRC capabilities such as risk management, cyber risk management, third-party risk management, incident reporting, strategic planning, ESG management, and project management? These features can help scale and mature your compliance program toward integrated GRC.
• Does the software automate reporting and feature intuitive dashboards to help teams track and complete compliance and risk management tasks efficiently?
• Does the platform provide a detailed audit trail of compliance activities and sufficient reporting to satisfy both internal stakeholders and external regulators?
• Does the compliance automation software address data protection needs across IT data and compliance, offering frameworks for GDPR and NIST CSF compliance, as well as cyber risk management and incident reporting for a comprehensive IT GRC solution?
• The best compliance software tools offer IT security and compliance automation in one platform – providing complete visibility into your compliance status.

The following problems can arise when companies don’t use compliance tools:

• Managing compliance through manual processes often results in poor-quality compliance data due to issues such as a lack of data governance, data entry errors, copy-and-paste mistakes, overwritten information, and incomplete fields – resulting in inefficient compliance operations.
• Manual compliance management relies on dispersed and unintegrated spreadsheets, leading to fragmented data that distorts reporting outputs and undermines decision-making.
• The absence of automation slows compliance monitoring, increasing the risk of non-compliance and exposing the organization to significant risks.
• Unstructured manual processes hinder an organization’s ability to demonstrate compliance due to incomplete and uncoordinated documentation.
• Siloed data and disjointed workflows make it challenging to connect compliance obligations with related controls, policies, risks, audits, and incidents.
• Without a compliance management platform inconsistent risk frameworks and isolated data storage prevents organizations from comparing compliance data across different sites, making it difficult to demonstrate compliance consistently across departments and locations.
• Without a compliance automation platform, firms will struggle to understand the global threat landscape as they won’t have visibility of regulatory obligations and upcoming changes – leaving their organizations exposed.

The benefits of a compliance management solution include:

• A compliance automation tool enhances regulatory compliance by leveraging regulatory horizon scanning technology and automated change management workflows.
• A compliance automation platform minimizes potential compliance risks by proactively addressing compliance-related issues.
• A compliance automation system generates automated compliance reports and streamlines record-keeping, ensuring adequate proof of compliance for regulators and reducing non-compliance risks.
• Compliance automation software automates key tasks such as continuous monitoring, reporting, compliance checks, and auditing – reducing the administrative workload and minimizing human error.
• The automated compliance management software fosters a compliant culture by helping staff understand, adhere to, and digitally attest to policies and regulations – ensuring sufficient evidence collection to prove compliance.
• Compliance automation software drives cost savings by lowering compliance monitoring expenses, automating compliance procedures, and reducing the risk of violations, fines, and penalties.
• Reduced compliance risk is another key benefit of compliance automation software – the solution highlights potential compliance gaps early so they can be addressed.
• Continuous compliance monitoring and corrective actions ensures streamlined audits and adequate security practices.
• Compliance management software provides centralized access management to policies and procedures and visibility of compliance status.
• Compliance automation software provides real-time progress tracking – enabling teams to understand key metrics like compliance status, policy status and the progression of regulatory changes.
• Compliance monitoring software supports an organization’s compliance journey – these platforms offer a wealth of functionality enabling firms to mature their programs as the companies grow.