Legality of EDMS - everything you need to know about electronic document management from M.E.Doc experts

Recently on our YouTube–channel — EDMS talks, a new video has appeared about the legality of EDMS in Ukraine. We suggest that you consider in more detail everything that our experts said in the second issue about electronic document management.

As you know, nowadays businesses provide tax reporting in electronic form, electronic invoices also became electronic a long time ago. However, companies still keep primary documentation on paper. Although it can also be issued in electronic form, because there are all legal reasons for this. In particular, this is evidenced by the position of the state and tax authorities, which is presented in the relevant official documents.

The legality of EDMS

Yes, the state regulates electronic document circulation with three main laws: «On electronic documents and electronic document circulation», «On electronic trust services» , and also, since we are talking about primary documents, we also take into account the «Accounting and Financial Reporting Act».

According to all the above-mentioned normative and legal documents, we suggest you consider the general picture of electronic document management and storage of electronic documents from the legal side.

According to Art. 5 of the «Law on Electronic Documents and Electronic Document Management»; — electronic document – this is a document in which information is recorded in the form of electronic data, including the mandatory details of the document.

In the same law it is said: «An electronic document can be created, transferred, stored and transformed by electronic means into a visual form. The visual form of presentation of an electronic document is the display of the data it contains by electronic means or on paper in a form suitable for human perception of its content.

So, this article of the law tells us that an e-document can be transmitted in electronic form, and its visualization (pdf) can be both electronic and paper form.

In the second section of Art. 7 of this law states: «The original of an electronic document is considered to be an electronic copy of the document with mandatory details, including an electronic signature of the author, or a signature equivalent to a handwritten one.

In the same section, an explanation is provided regarding the need to create a document, both in paper form and in electronic form. It sounds like this: «If the author creates an electronic document and a paper document identical in terms of documentary information and details, each of the documents is an original and has the same legal force».

So, as we can see, primary documents, both paper and electronic, will have the same legal force, provided they contain mandatory details.

What details should be considered mandatory in the primary document?

According to the law «On accounting and financial reporting in Ukraine»; the primary document must contain the following information:

• name of the document (form);
• date of creation;
• name of the enterprise on whose behalf the document is drawn up;
• the content and scope of the economic transaction, the unit of measurement of the economic transaction;
• positions of persons responsible for carrying out an economic transaction and correctness of its registration;
• personal signature or other data that make it possible to identify the person who participated in the implementation of the business transaction.

Currently, the legislation does not provide a complete list of primary documents used in accounting, and some basic types of primary documents do not have an approved form.

Among the main primary documents, the following can be distinguished:

• expenditure invoice (form not approved);
• goods and transport invoice (Form approved by order of the Ministry of Transport dated 14.10.1997 No. 363);
• certificate of acceptance of completed works (services) (form not approved);
• cash orders (revenue and expense) (Forms approved by NBU Resolution No. 148 of December 29, 2017);
• invoice (form not approved);
• accounting certificate (The form is given in the Methodological recommendations for the application of accounting registers, approved by the order of the Ministry of Finance dated December 29, 2000 No. 356).

In the event that the form of the primary document is not approved, the enterprise has the right to develop it independently. The main requirement – the form must contain all mandatory details! You can easily create your own form of the primary document (your own template) for exchange with by counterparties using the M.E.Doc program, in which the Template Designer was developed.

Implementation of EDMS at the enterprise

The main steps that an enterprise should take in order to switch to electronic document management:

1. Develop your own manual for record keeping, guided by the provisions of the «Procedure for working with electronic documents in record keeping and their preparation for transfer to archival storage».
2. Get KEP. It is not necessary to obtain a separate EP for conducting EDMS, i.e. if you previously submitted reports in electronic form using the KEP, then this same EP will also be suitable for exchanging primary documents.
3. Choose the software that will make it possible to superimpose the KEP on documents and send them to counterparties. Pay attention — if you keep company records in a specific accounting system, the document management system must be integrated into your OS. This will help facilitate your work with electronic documents.
4. Conclude contracts or additional agreements with counterparties in which, in accordance with Art. 207 of the Civil Code of Ukraine, it is necessary to confirm the granting of consent for the use of KEP.

Let us remind you that the Linkos Group company offers software products for document management that can meet the needs of the enterprise at each level. It can be a desktop solution — the M.E.Doc program, the SOTA cloud service, or a solution for users of 1C «Enterprise»; — FlyDoc.

You can see more details about all software solutions at previous webinar of our YouTube–channel — EDMS talks.

Pay attention — electronic documents signed by the EP must be time stamped in accordance with the updated law «On electronic trust services». The software you have chosen for document management is responsible for such a function.

What is a timestamp for?

• the time stamp confirms the existence of such a document at the time of its signing;
• it allows you to keep the validity of the EP certificate superimposed on the document.

If you signed an EP document without an exact time stamp, such a document will be considered invalid after the expiration of your certificate.

If you used a time stamp when applying the EP, and then your e-signature was valid, then after the expiration of the certificate, the e-document will be considered valid.

Any software product from the Linkos Group automatically stamps the exact time when signing a document.

You can watch the entire second webinar about EDMS from YouTube experts– of the EDMS talks channel right now by following the link.

In the meantime, we are preparing the next video for you, in which you will find out the name of the winner, who will get the opportunity to use the M.E.Doc program for free for a whole year.

We recommend subscribe to the EDMS talks channel so as not to miss new interesting videos.