Affirmations & Disclosures

Stop chasing down paper forms or emails. Quickly identify and mitigate potential risks with our compliance software

  • Affirm employees have read company policies

  • Collect employee disclosures like outside business activities

  • Route disclosures for review

  • Track delinquent employees

  • Search disclosures for potential conflicts

Affirm employees have read company policies
Employees can acknowledge that they have read and understand firm policies and procedures. Their electronic signature and the exact version of the policy they affirmed to is stored for future reference.

Create, distribute and collect employee disclosures like outside business activities
Custom forms can be created to capture information that employees need to disclose like outside business activities. Information previously disclosed can be carried forward.

Route disclosures for review
Completed disclosures can be routed to supervisors and/or Compliance for review and approval. Reviewers can be notified via email that they have pending disclosures to be reviewed.

Track delinquent employees
Reports can be run to identify delinquent employees and reminder emails can be sent to them.

Search disclosures for potential conflicts
Potential conflicts can be identified by doing a full text search of the population of disclosures.

Stop chasing down paper forms or emails. Quickly identify and mitigate potential risks.
  • Affirmations

  • Disclosures

  • Review and Approval

  • Delinquency Report

  • Full Text Search

Affirmations & Disclosures Compliance Software FAQs

How do I create a questionnaire?

The intuitive interface allows non-technical employees to create questions with answers that can be configured to accept text, radio buttons, drop down boxes, numbers, dates, etc.

Can different employees receive different questions?

Yes. Employees can belong to one or more groups. Questionnaires can be sent to one or more groups of employees.

What is an Affirmation?

An affirmation is a question on the questionnaire. It is a statement that an employee certifies or attests to (e.g., having read a policy, having disclosed all their outside business activities).

What is a Disclosure?

A disclosure is information that an employee discloses to their company (e.g., an outside business activity, personal contact information, etc.). Disclosures can be routed for multiple levels of approval. Disclosures can also persist from questionnaire to questionnaire so they do not need to be disclosed again.

Do employees need to reenter disclosures each year?

No. The system optionally carries them forward to the next questionnaire.

Can I search the disclosures for a keyword?

Yes. There is a keyword search that searches every field in the disclosures.

Will brokerage account disclosures populate Personal Trading and vice versa?

Yes.

What else can I use the Affirmations and Disclosures module for?

Customers are using the system to replace all emails that require a response. This way they can track delinquent responses and have all the responses electronically filed. Some examples include: monthly branch review checklists, weekly email review attestations and risk review exception notations.

Why do I have to upload my policies? Can I link to them instead?

Uploading the policy allows the system to produce the exact version of the policy that the employee affirmed to.

A mid-size full service broker

Firm

A mid-size full service broker with multiple offices in the US, Europe and Asia

Problem

Compliance used to distribute paper forms for people to affirm to company policies. Additional paper forms were used to capture employee disclosure information like outside business activities and outside trading accounts. Each year the process involved 7 Compliance staff over a period of 3 months distributing the forms and following up to ensure the completion of the forms. With so many paper forms flying around, it was difficult to be sure that each were ever actually complete.

Solution

The firm implemented Compliance11's Affirmations and Disclosures product. Now employees receive an email inviting them to complete the annual questionnaire. Once completed, electronic forms are automatically routed for approval. Reports ensure 100% compliance. The annual questionnaire is administered in weeks instead of months by one instead of seven compliance people.

Result

In recent regulatory audit, the data provided from the system was not even questioned. The firm is looking to buy additional modules from Complaince11.

A large, international agency brokerage firm

Firm

A large agency brokerage firm with multiple offices in the US, Europe and Asia

Problem

The Compliance department was unable to distribute its annual affirmation process and continue to perform its regular duties. Hiring temporary workers was costly and did not improve efficiency. The manual process took almost 7 months from onset to completion. Compliance spent an inordinate amount of time resolving issues, potential conflicts and incomplete responses in addition to chasing down laggards.

Solution

The firm recently implemented Compliance11's Affirmations & Disclosures product. The questionnaires were tailored to specific departments. Approximately 12,000 questions were sent out beginning in April 2008 and 6,200 came back within the first ten days. Disclosures were routed to the supervisor for review and laggard employees were identified though the Delinquency Report and sent reminder emails.

Result

The process required significantly less compliance department effort, no temporary worker expense, and took less than one-quarter of the time it used to.

Bridge Capital Associates, Inc

Firm

Bridge Capital Associates, Inc, a middle market investment banking firm

Problem

Bridge Capital has a team of independent contractors across the country arranging private placements of debt and equity and advising clients on mergers and acquisitions. The firm was burdened by sending out paper affirmations, compiling the results and following up on the deficiencies. Given that the firm is fully employed in business issues, the clerical compliance tasks were becoming unduly burdensome.

Solution

Bridge Capital implemented Compliance11's Affirmations & Disclosures module. The Software-as-a-Service model was particularly appealing because it required no IT resources, could be effortlessly managed remotely and the cost of product could be passed onto the contractors. With the new system, the affirmations and disclosures were fully completed with minimal clerical effort. Deficiencies were quickly identified in the Delinquency Report and reminder emails were sent.

Result

The clerical effort associated with managing compliance has been minimized.

Client Experience

"We use the entire compliance solutions suite offered by Compliance11. Our registered representatives are both geographically diverse and frequently travel. The Compliance11 platform provides tremendous flexibility and convenience to automate much of our compliance program and allow effective compliance communications between staff in the field and the home office. Larry Goldfarb and his team are top notch professionals and have always responded to our issues in a timely and thorough manner. We hope to utilize the Compliance11 program for many years to come."
Carrie Wisnewski, President

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