How Kramer & Frank Improves Compliance and Efficiency With Realigned Policy ManagementCompliance Management
Kramer and Frank is a renowned Missouri-based, full-service creditors’ rights law firm, representing businesses ranging from national banks to local medical offices across Kansas, Missouri and southern Illinois. Kramer and Frank partnered with Provana to improve compliance and increase efficiency with an automated compliance management solution.
Challenge
Kramer and Frank needed to increase their operational efficiency to meet the increasing scrutiny of the regulators and better prepare for the clients’ audits. They had to restructure their policy management and internal compliance program, saving time and resources to focus on overall business growth and deliver value.
Before switching to Provana’s compliance management solution, they were using SharePoint to house and update their policies and SOPs. Managers were handling the approvals processes through emails only, and that made tracking multiple edits and reviewing policies and procedures difficult to manage and updates uneven. Searching for specific policies and finding updated information were also challenging for the staff members because of the siloed system.
Due to clients’ audits and compliance requirements, it is a must for their employees to acknowledge the updates in the documents periodically, to certify understanding of the new policies and SOPs as they are updated, but at least annually, and to undergo testing to confirm comprehension. With their previous online testing system, they had to share the URL manually every time with all the employees for a test. The test scores were not tabulated for the test takers in a reporting format for review. They needed to create their reports using spreadsheets.
Solution
Provana’s IPACS, an automated compliance management solution, helps Kramer and Frank store all their SOPs and policies in one place, ensuring the updated documents are easily accessible to all their staff for acknowledgment and tracked for certification across the organization. A centralized system provides seamless reporting and better process controls in place. It ensures that only one version of each policy and SOP is in circulation.
Leveraging IPACS, Kramer and Frank improved the review process of their documents by about 80%. With all the documents in one place, they can edit, update, review, and approve the policies and SOPs faster. Automated notifications have made their job easier to complete pending tasks on time.
Getting the staff members to acknowledge and certify the updates or new documents has also become more efficient. Employees get alerts about the pending tests via emails and the system dashboard. They can follow the link shared in the notifications or directly go for the tests by logging into the system. IPACS populates the test scores in the reports that can be shared easily with the stakeholders and clients for review.
“Provana’s compliance solution, IPACS helped us house and manage everything in one place, which saved about 80% of our time spent on the approval process and improved our efficiency with internal compliance in addition to becoming the tool to provide information during our client audits.” said David Weimer, Chief Compliance Officer at Kramer & Frank
Results
Partnering with Provana helped Kramer and Frank streamline their policies and processes reducing their manual efforts in workflow management. Some of the impacts are the following:
- Reduced approval process timing for policy management by 80%
- Better accessibility of the policies and SOPs to the employees due to centralized CMS
- Automated training and certifications meet their compliance goals and provide better utilization of time for the managers
80%
Time saving in policy management & approval workflows
Increased
Efficiency on compliance tests and certification of employees
Better
Response time
For audits with centralized CMS
“Our team has experienced an elevation in efficiency and organization with IPACS, we continue to find ways to customize it to our needs and the analytics provides us with a better picture of our status in training vendor management and other compliance areas.”
