Why use Strunk’s Issue Manager instead of Excel

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How does your financial institution keep track of internal and external audit findings, customer complaints, and comments from regulators that require corrective action? Many financial institutions use Excel spreadsheets to monitor these outstanding issues. It’s no surprise that financial institutions rely on Excel for these tasks, as it remains one of the most widely used business software programs out there. Most employees find Excel convenient and believe it meets their needs for issue tracking.

Many financial institutions may not be aware of the risks and downsides of using Excel as their main document for tracking audit findings, customer complaints, and regulatory comments. Excel currently lacks a clear visual history of file updates, requiring users to save multiple versions of a file to track changes. This leads to numerous duplicate copies, time wasted on figuring out the latest version, and a high risk of lost data. Furthermore, the process can be disrupted when key personnel responsible for the Excel spreadsheet leave the business without providing proper instructions. As regulators demand complete audit trails and transparency, Excel cannot meet this requirement. Another issue with Excel is its lack of access control tracking, which can lead to unauthorized access, data corruption, or accidental deletion. Managing Excel spreadsheets is a manual, time-consuming, and highly inefficient process. With labor costs constantly rising, financial institutions are beginning to understand that increasing employee productivity by using efficient software solutions can significantly impact their bottom line.

Strunk’s Issues Manager module can help your financial institution to solve the problem of tracking audit findings, customer complaints, and regulatory comments in Excel. Strunk’s hosted solution allows financial institutions to track issues that arise and assign responsibility to associates within the organization. Issues Manager also enables you to attach documents, assign priority and due dates, and track the status of the issues within the solution, while generating reports for auditors or external use. Contact Strunk if you would like to automate your issue tracking in a secure environment that creates full audit trails.

An independent certified public accountant has examined Strunk’s operations and found them to be in compliance with the AICPA’s Trust Service Principles. It was determined that Strunk meets the Security, Availability, Processing Integrity, Confidentiality, and Privacy criteria for SOC 2 established by the AICPA.