What is Compliance Reporting ?
Compliance reporting is a part of the core compliance process. It is a mandatory requirement by regulators to build and maintain compliance reports. The reports are used to assess whether the company has been complying with the regulations and document the current state of the organisation’s compliance posture.
Generally, a compliance report is helmed under the direction of the Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) of the company. The CCO is tasked with establishing the standards and implementing policies that everyone in the organisation must adhere to. This is to ensure that the compliance programme is effective and prevent any non-compliant procedures from occurring. The CCO will also need to rectify any ineffective practices.
What information is in the compliance report ?
A compliance report has four main components:
- A statement concerning the regulations in question.
- A discussion around the scope of the compliance report, assessing and affirming what the appointed compliance officer reviewed.
- A review of the compliance process itself which describes the specific procedures.
- A summary of the outcomes of the analysis – whether the organisation has met the compliance obligations.
There are two types of compliance reports for different audiences: external and internal. External reports are usually read by the members from the regulations. The report contains information which assesses whether the organisation is complying with regulations. While internal reports are more specific and targeted, meant for the board members. The information in the internal report is dependent on what the organisation wants to focus on.
What are the benefits of compliance reporting?
Compliance reporting brings about various benefits. Firstly, it acts as a risk mitigation tool. The detailed compliance report generates a list of risks that the organisation must mitigate. Furthermore, a compliance report will not only give the organisation peace of mind to the stakeholders of the company but also to prospective customers and investors. The documentation of the good performance of the organisation will increase the trustworthiness stakeholders have. Customers and investors are then more likely to have business relations with the organisation.
Moving towards digital and automated compliance reporting
With the Covid-19 pandemic, remote work arrangement is more prevalent, and physical reports are no longer passed to colleagues at the workplace. The advancement of technology has allowed companies to rely more heavily on technology to carry out their compliance obligations.
Learn how the Regtank solution can help automate and digitise the compliance reporting flow, as well as streamline the process of data collection to help identify and prioritise risks, and generate comprehensive reports for your business.
