Best Compliance Management Software for Small Business

For a small business the best compliance management software is the one that runs without a compliance officer, because you almost certainly do not have one. Feature depth matters less than whether the system chases people on its own, keeps the evidence in a form you can hand over, and stays current with Australian law without you watching it.

Size does not shrink the duty. Safe Work Australia counts a small business as one with fewer than 20 workers, and every one of them is still a person conducting a business or undertaking carrying the same primary duty of care as a national employer. That duty cannot be handed to a supplier, a contractor or a piece of software. What software can do is make it easier to discharge and far easier to prove.

Criteria that matter more at 12 staff than at 1,200:

• Does it chase for you? Automated reminders and escalations replace the person you do not have spare to nag people.
• Does it cover the whole join-up, so training, policy sign-off and paperwork happen together at onboarding rather than in three systems?
• How long until it is actually running? A lean team cannot absorb a six month implementation, so ask what a realistic go-live looks like.
• Who maintains the content when the law moves, and is that included or quoted separately?
• What does it produce on the day an inspector, insurer or client asks for your records?

Worth planning for the obligations you do not have yet. The Privacy Act still exempts most businesses under $3 million turnover, but that exemption has been flagged for removal in a later tranche of reform, and some sectors lose it sooner regardless of turnover. A small business choosing systems now is choosing for a moving target, so favour something you can extend over something you will replace. This is general information rather than legal advice, and obligations differ across states and territories.

Posts tagged here work through the selection in more detail. To talk it through against your own situation, book a consultation, or see how the compliance management system and the wider workplace compliance solution are put together.