Document Automation or Document Risk Mitigation?

Document automation, document assembly and document generation are all terms used to describe the process of using templates for error-free documentation.

Are these descriptions of the actual functionality of the software accurate?

Different industries have different strategies for document automation software. Document automation technology is used by large legal firms and banks to reduce risk.

Legalization of Documents Contracts, insurance forms, and wills are all legal documents. They are known for being unstable. The laws that govern them can change at any time a governing body meets. Platforms designed to automate legal documentation were born out of this reality.

The main benefit to financial institutions and banks is the ability to create better documentation. The problem is the same for all institutions in the sector, from global banks to local agricultural credit cooperatives. Banks need a platform to create complex and business-ready contracts. It is crucial that the business-ready component is included, as it is the human aspect of preparing contracts that can expose you to legal exposure.

Although document automation systems were initially used in law firms in late 1980s, they are equally useful in any business environment that produces complex legal documentation.

A document automation system could, for example, be used to capture expertise from a bank's senior lawyers. This would allow non-legal staff to create legally binding loan documents from remote locations with precise precision. This system would guide a loan officer through complex business rules and provide expert advice at data entry.

This software can be used as part of a wider business process management (BPM), solution. Because it is more capable of handling complex documents, companies often integrate specialist document automation software into their BPM system. Even though many BPM systems come with basic document creation tools, this is still done. This is at most partially to reduce risk.

While enterprise-grade document automation systems are different from expert systems when it comes to developing a procedure for defining business rules, they have been used for the same purpose as expert systems for many years: to capture and use expert knowledge to enable non-experts achieve the same results. This is, again, about risk reduction in document production.

When discussing the capabilities and functionalities of this type software, the repeated use of words such as automate, genere or assemble encourages me to believe that the naming conventions I started by mentioning are correct. But, I believe that the main purpose of using this type of technology in industry is to manage risk.