Outside Content for Your Documents? No Problem!

Many organizations are required to include pages of legal text and regulation notices as part of a set of documents they share with their customers. The content of these pages may be created outside the organization that is creating the messaging. The “home-created” documents include welcome packets, shipping documents, or loyalty cards. Attached documents created outside the organization include privacy notices, terms and conditions, and product safety warnings. Often, companies must recreate these documents exactly as the originals. This is known as a “light table match.” Instead of adding these pages into document templates, it is more efficient and safer to call them in at production time from the official source, a process called document “stitching.” Experts regard stitching as a best practice for producing external boilerplate documents.

What Are Light Table Compliant Documents?

Light table compliant documents are not like the government-issued originals. They are government-issued originals. Forms designers have tried to create official documents using the popular document composition tools of the day, but it is a challenge to replicate them exactly. Variances in fonts, line spacing, or line length can cause documents to fail a light-table match. Even line-by-line word wrapping must match, so line references correspond. For example, inquiries about a document may refer to specific passages according to their position on the page, such as “paragraph 4, line 5.” Light-table matched documents are important when recipients return signed documents to the government as well, when government agencies scan completed forms. The government-generated originals are scanned without human intervention and OCR technology extracts the information from the completed PDFs. Scanning automation drives efficiency and reduces error. In other cases, documents must follow the government’s specifications exactly to ensure continuity and consistency across multiple industries and geographic boundaries.

Content Outside the Document Pack

To avoid non-compliance, the only fail-safe solution is calling the required government form into the document pack to be printed either hard-copy or electronically. Most document composition software cannot reliably do this. There is no margin for error. To be compliant, the regulated document must be the right document in the right format, not merely similar. It must be the exact format the governmental agency prescribes. This is done by stitching the governmental PDF into the document pack. To the print shop, this process is seamless. The government-provided forms could reside on a server miles away from the hard copy printer. To the recipient, it is also seamless. Their packets include the documents the government requires; not facsimiles. Their submission will not be rejected because they have an unreadable form.

Stitching

Local, state, and federal agencies supply regulatory PDF documents. Companies can selectively include a chosen (stitched) form in a document set by using business rules established in the document software that inspects the variables included in the printed pages.

The Real Thing

Document composition software applications avoid the problem and expense of converting government-supplied documents. Download PDF files from the appropriate regulatory agencies and load them into a document library. Stitching functionality calls the correct form at the right time and in the right place in the document set.

Action

Eclipse Software’s customer communications management platform enables organizations to build and execute effective communications while lowering operating costs and ensuring compliance. The software provides banks, insurers, and other regulation-sensitive companies with ways to improve regulatory management. DocOrigin stitches government-mandated forms in their original state into the originating document pack. An intuitive interface gives an organization the power to meet all regulatory requirements and deadlines.