How to Maintain Compliance with Regulatory Requirements: A Guide

Regulatory compliance is one of the most important things involved in running a business, but it’s also one of the most tedious - and overlooked.

It doesn’t help that the number of federal regulations that govern all business types has grown astronomically in recent years.

If you’re new to the process, figuring out how to maintain compliance with regulatory requirements can seem overwhelming.

It doesn’t have to be, though.

It all starts with formulating a plan to monitor changes in legislation, implement new policies and protocols within your business, and ensure those policies and protocols are being followed to the letter.

There are also several tools out there designed to help you streamline the process!

One of these tools is Visualping. Visualping is a powerful website monitoring tool that can continuously monitor any web page for new changes, then alert you when a change is detected.

It’s a great way to keep track of new changes to important pieces of legislation or regulatory requirements in your industry, so you can ensure that you remain compliant with these regulations as they change and evolve.

Need to remain in compliance with important laws or regulations that govern your industry? Here’s how you can put processes in place that keep you ahead of the curve.

Stay Abreast of Recent and Incoming Regulatory Changes that Will Affect Your Industry

If you’re in a highly regulated industry, like healthcare or finance, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of legal regulations to follow. Changes to relevant laws and regulations can happen daily, so constant vigilance is often necessary.

With that being said, it’s up to you to look for updates and make appropriate adjustments to your business practices.

Depending on the size of your company and the number of individual regulations you need to keep track of, you may have a full-time employee or even a full-time department dedicated to compliance monitoring.

That said, it’s not always enough to wait for a law to change and then follow through by making changes to your operations. Your business will need to stay informed when it comes to regulatory trends.

That way, your business can get started on any changes you need to make before any new changes even take effect.

Offer Employee Compliance Training and Clear Protocols to Help Maintain Compliance with Regulatory Requirements

There’s no doubt that you understand how remarkably important it is to stay compliant, but that may not be the case for all of your employees. If even one department elects to take a more “relaxed” approach to regulatory compliance, you might find your company wrapped in a web of legal trouble.

Avoiding unsavory outcomes like this one requires that you make sure your employees understand the importance of regulatory compliance (and the consequences of non-compliance).

It’s also a good idea to make it easy for employees to stay up-to-date with regulatory changes. Offer employees pieces of training as needed, and consider creating a guidebook your employees can consult should they have questions down the line.

Document Everything

It’s easy to get so caught up in tracking regulatory changes and deciding how to ensure compliance with their requirements that you forget a critical part of the process: documentation. If you’re hit with a regulatory audit, having a record of all the changes you’ve made will help you easily illustrate your business’s compliance.

If you’re in a highly-regulated industry, it may be worth investing in compliance software, which lets you keep track of (and document) changes in regulations and any changes your business has made accordingly. Regardless of how you go about performing it, a robust documentation procedure is an absolute must.

Be Prepared for a Regulatory Audit at Any Time

Facing a regulatory audit is always stressful, but it will be infinitely more so if your business is unprepared for it. Since audits are usually conducted without notice, you should always be prepared for an auditor to walk through your doors.

Audit management software is a key part of staying prepared, as it helps you create audit-planning checklists, identify problem areas, and implement procedures to improve. It’s not only good for external regulatory audits either. It also will help you conduct regular internal audits to ensure that every branch of your business is compliant.

Consider Designating a Chief Compliance Officer

Implementing compliance procedures is one thing, but making sure your employees are actually following new policies and procedures is another altogether. You may need to designate a certain employee (or group of employees) to maintain regulatory compliance across departments.

That isn’t a job you should give to just anyone, though, especially if you run a large business or one with many imposed regulations.

If such is the case, you should consider hiring a Chief Compliance Officer, someone who can design and manage regulatory compliance procedures throughout your organization and follow up with different departments to ensure proper implementation.

Use a Tool Like Visualping for Real-Time Compliance Monitoring

When you have hundreds upon thousands of legal regulations to monitor, visiting every relevant website and manually scanning them for changes is time-consuming, not to mention entirely impractical. That’s where a tool like Visualping comes in.

Visualping is a simple yet powerful monitoring tool for law firms and other densely-regulated businesses. It’s easy enough for even non-tech-savvy employees to use. All you need to do is select a relevant website to monitor and designate an email address to receive alerts.

For instance, to keep track of regulatory changes, you’d start by selecting a site listing current regulations pertaining to your business. You then choose how often you want to check the site for changes — it can be as frequent as every five minutes — so Visualping can notify you as soon as a regulatory change (or proposed change) goes live.

How to Use Visualping for Compliance Monitoring

You don’t have to be a tech expert to get started with Visualping for compliance monitoring. Here’s a quick guide:

Step 1: Copy the URL of the Law or Regulation From Where It’s Published Online, Then Paste It Into the Search Field on Visualping’s Homepage

Depending on how and where relevant regulations are published, you may be able to monitor a centralized site where all (or most) regulations are published. More often, though, you’ll need to find a different website for each law or regulation.

Copy the URL of the specific page you want to track, then head to Visualping’s homepage and paste it into the search bar.

Step 2: Select the Part of the Page You Want Visualping to Monitor for Changes

With Visualping’s defining page monitoring features, you can select a specific part of the website to monitor. You also can elect to monitor changes in text, images, or both.

If you wish, you can make use of Visualping’s keyword alert feature as well. With it, you’ll be notified when certain phrases are removed or added. You also may want to use Visualping for defacement monitoring on your own site.

Step 3: Choose the Frequency of Monitoring

You can have Visualping check each website at one of these intervals:

• Every five minutes
• Every 15 minutes
• Every 30 minutes
• Every hour
• Every three hours
• Every six hours
• Every 12 hours
• Every day
• Every week
• Every month

Step 4: Enter the Email Address Where You Want to Receive Alerts

Choose to send regulatory alerts to one or more email addresses. You also have the option to turn off alerts or send them to a colleague while you’re taking time off.

Step 5: Check Your Email to Complete the Signup Process

Once you provide Visualping with a valid email address, the site will send you a message with a link to verify your account. Once you’ve done that, you’re all set!

Get Started with the Best Regulatory Monitoring Tool You’re Not Using

Stop letting compliance monitoring be a cause of constant stress. With Visualping, you can start monitoring for legislative changes in a matter of minutes.

Even if you have thousands of regulations you need to track, it’s no problem with Visualping for business! You can monitor any number of pages in one place.

Reach out to us to get started today.