For HR and compliance
Every policy owned, approved, current and signed
Regulators and auditors expect written policies that are approved, kept up to date and communicated to the people who follow them. Beacon keeps that evidence as part of everyday work, so the answer to an examiner’s question is already on record.
What regulators expect
Approved, current and communicated, in three markets
A summary of published expectations for financial institutions. It is a starting point for a conversation, not legal advice.
| Market | Expectation | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Canada | FINTRAC requires written compliance policies and procedures that are kept up to date and approved by a senior officer. OSFI’s Guideline E-13 expects procedures that assure day-to-day compliance, with documentation to show it. | FINTRAC compliance program guidance; OSFI Guideline E-13 |
| United States | The BSA/AML compliance program must be written and board-approved, with internal controls for timely updates. NCUA requires a written BSA policy approved by the board. | FFIEC BSA/AML Examination Manual; NCUA Examiner’s Guide |
| United Kingdom | Firms must regularly review and update their policies, controls and procedures, keep a written record of them, and record the steps taken to communicate them. | Money Laundering Regulations 2017, regulation 19; FCA Handbook SYSC 6.1.1R |
And people miss obligations they don’t see
of employees faced situations in the past year where they didn’t know how to comply.
Gartner, 2024fewer employees miss compliance obligations when controls are built into their daily work.
Gartner, 2022of frontline workers say messages from leadership don’t make it to them.
Microsoft Work Trend Index, 2022Sources: Gartner employee compliance survey of 1,012 employees, December 2023, published 2024; Gartner research on embedded compliance controls, published with its prediction of a 50% cut in annual compliance training, 2022; Microsoft Work Trend Index frontline worker report, 9,600 frontline workers in eight countries, 2022. The surveys cover general workforces.
How Beacon maps to it
Evidence produced by the work itself
Approved
Each new policy and version goes to a named approver, who confirms the approval or sends it back with a reason. The approver can never be the author.
Current
Every policy has a review date, flagged ahead of time. Owners mark it reviewed, start a new version or retire it, and each step is logged.
Communicated
Each person in a policy’s audience is asked to sign, with a due date, on each major version and on a schedule. Overdue items go to their manager.
On record
A typed signature for each person and version, the full version history, and a lifecycle audit trail, with the attestation log exportable to CSV.
The policy owner’s view
The whole program on one dashboard
Overall completion, overdue attestations, expired certifications and published policies at a glance, with questions from staff, the needs-attention list and completion by policy underneath.
The examiner’s question
“Which version was in force, who approved it, and who signed it?”
Without a system of record, HR and compliance rebuild the answer from email threads, a sign-off spreadsheet and file dates. It takes days, and the answer is still “we believe it was this version”. With Beacon it takes four steps.
- Open the policy
Find it in the Policies register, filtered by stage if you need to.
- See the version
The version history shows each version’s dates, author, approver and change summary.
- Show who signed it
Sign-offs for that version, with each person’s typed signature and date.
- Export the record
Export the audit log to CSV for the examiner, including signatures on replaced versions.
Who Beacon is built for
Organizations that must show their people signed the rules
Typically 200 to 5,000 staff, on Microsoft 365, with policies in Word or PDF and sign-off tracked by email or spreadsheet today.
Credit unions and banks
AML, conduct, privacy and security policies, approved and signed by version, ready for the exam.
Insurers
Conduct and privacy sign-offs, plus the licences and certifications field staff must keep current.
Utilities
Safety policies and the certificates crews need, each tracked to its expiry date.
Health organizations
Policies with clear owners and review dates, and training certificates tracked by person.
Public sector
Codes of conduct and acceptable-use policies signed every year, with a full record of who approved what and when.
Large contact centres
Frontline staff who rarely read all-staff email, reached with a list of what they owe and a manager who can see it.
No two compliance programs are the same
Your program, built in. Standard controls underneath.
Already built
Controls that work the same way every time
- No self-approval, and a reason required to send a version back
- Staff see only approved versions; drafts stay hidden
- A signature per person per version, and a lifecycle audit trail
Designed before your project starts, so you can rely on them from the first approval.
Built for you
The way your program actually runs
- Your policies, owners and approvers
- Your review cycles, re-signing schedules and time to sign
- Your audiences and your certification types
Built into your package by iomer, so Beacon follows your program rather than asking you to change it.
Alongside what you have
Your board, your procedures, your policies
Board approval. Where your board or a committee approves a policy, Beacon records the approval step and keeps the approved version and date. It doesn’t replace the board’s own decision or minutes.
Procedures. Large libraries of procedures, job aids and guides belong in a knowledge centre such as iomer’s Hazel. Beacon holds the smaller set of policies people must formally sign, plus certifications.
A typed signature. It records who signed which version and when. It’s a compliance record, not proof that someone understood the policy, which is why staff can ask the owner a question before they sign.
Beacon supports your compliance program. It doesn’t make an organization compliant on its own, and it doesn’t supply policy content. Your compliance team decides how it fits your program.
Download the datasheet (PDF, 2 pages)
Show us what your auditors ask for
Watch the 45-second tour, or book a walkthrough with policies like yours and we’ll show where each record comes from.