Risk Management Strategies for Building Surveyors

CPD Solutions ‘Cruising for Points’ seminar, held earlier this month, featured a diverse program of topics and speakers such as Darren Ho, Director of BCCS Law. Darren facilitated one of the leading topics for discussion ‘Closing old files and Managing any Associated Risk’. He stressed that a key factor in any risk management strategy is the accurate use of checklists.

Risk Management: Checklists

In today’s digital age, checklists are the electronic reminders that monitor and track open files, although there are still some certifiers that are yet to convert to this method. Electronic checklists are both efficient and cost-effective. In the context of his presentation topic, Darren advocated their use on files that are about to lapse or close. Checklists provide the framework of what needs to be done and when. They track the history of what has been checked, needs to be checked and accounted for. They can be linked and thereby initiated based on responses to situational questions.  Checklists are a crucial element in managing a certifier’s risk. Visual Approvals’ inbuilt checklist functionality requires every piece of documentation to be checked before a file can be closed. The software literally walks you through the process, ensures invoices have been paid, checks if a final has not been completed and recognises certificates that have been supplied and are stored as they are recorded.

Darren went on to say, that today’s society is extremely litigious and undertaking a building project is an expensive exercise, so when something goes wrong people are looking for someone to blame.

Risk Management: Archiving

This is a key reason why the archiving of job files and documents is fundamental to the risk management strategy of a building surveyor. How long do files need to be archived? Darren replied, “Forever…. basically for as long as you are around”. Building Certifiers are liable for the work they do even if the firm they are employed by closes down. Therefore it is imperative to keep documents, checklists and the entire history of each job easily accessible.

As physical file storage is expensive, electronic storage is the preferred solution either on your own internal server or in the cloud. It is the certifier’s choice as to where they store their documentation, however, Darren advised that a cloud solution is more secure. Speaking of the QBCC, Darren confirmed that the commission only needs to give 5 days for a certifier to respond to a complaint.  Therefore having real-time access to historical job files is a necessary requirement to give yourself time to respond.

When deciding where to store your electronic files, there are a number of options. Some certifiers prefer to keep their documents in Dropbox or on their Google Drive, however, these options do require access to a local drive and are therefore at risk by such threats as ransomware. In saying this though, both Sophos and Microsoft Windows 10 offer the ability to protect a specific folder (such as the Dropbox folder) from ransomware attacks.

Storing all of your documents on a local server can be costly, especially with the need to keep local hardware infrastructure up to date. Trying to retrieve data from a computer that is older than 5 years can be fraught with danger. The most secure solution is to store all file & documentation data in the cloud. Visual Approvals offers this exact service and it is open to any building surveyor or certification business that is looking for a secure cloud file storage solution.

Building Certifiers that do decide to take the Visual Approvals advantage, can have their historical file and document data migrated across to Visual Approvals during implementation, as VA supports all old file formats. These historical files are automatically converted to the latest version during the import process ensuring ongoing accessibility.

Risk Management: Even In Retirement

Darren concluded the presentation stating that Building Surveyors have a statutory duty of care to the general public, therefore, even in retirement it is necessary to be protected from possible litigation and have access to historical records.

If you are interested in Visual Approvals cloud hosting file storage solutions or require more information on the best practice use of checklists within Visual Approvals please do not hesitate to Contact Us.