Management of certification files: the operational process that no ERP was designed to solve

There is a process that is repeated with striking regularity in the certification and inspection bodies that we have analyzed. The team has a financial ERP that works. It has a document management system. He has the email. And it almost always has a spreadsheet that someone updates every morning with the status of active files: what certifications are in progress, what phase each one is in, which auditor is assigned, what is the date committed to the client and what is the actual date.

That spreadsheet is not an accident or negligence. This is the direct consequence of the fact that no generalist ERP was designed to manage the entire cycle of a certification file.

The ERP manages accounting, billing, and human resources. The certification file — with its specific phase logic, its accreditation requirements, its assignment of auditors by technical competence and its regulatory traceability — lives outside the system. And when you live outside the system, the only way to have visibility is in Excel.

This article documents why this is happening, what the real operating cost of the situation is and what technical architecture solves it without replacing the systems that already work.

The structural problem: the certification file is not a transaction

ERPs were designed around transactions: an order, an invoice, a payment, an accounting entry. Its central logic is the order—delivery—collection cycle, and everything built on that logic fits reasonably well [6].

The problem with certification and inspection is that your management unit is not a transaction, but a file with multiple stages, multiple actors and multiple associated documents that evolve over weeks or months.

A certification file has an opening, an auditor or inspector assignment, a documentary review phase, a field auditing phase, a non-compliance evaluation phase, a resolution phase and a phase for issuing the certificate or opinion. Each phase may require the intervention of different people with different technical profiles, the provision of documentation by the customer and the generation of records that must be kept to meet the accreditation requirements established by ENAC [5].

None of these phases has a native module in SAP, Dynamics or any other standard ERP. And the consequence is predictable: 81% of IT leaders say that data silos block their digital transformation initiatives [1], and certification bodies are a particularly clear example of this silo: the ERP has the financial data, the email has the communication with the customer and the spreadsheet has the real status of the files.

The three most common operational inefficiencies

Real-time visibility of file status

How many certification files are active right now? How many are in the field audit phase? How many have an open non-compliance pending resolution by the customer? How many are at risk of exceeding the committed deadline?

In most medium-sized certification bodies, answering these questions in real time requires asking the person who updates the Excel. If that person is in an audit, the response comes in hours or days.

20% of productivity in organizations with implemented ERP is lost precisely in these workflow inefficiencies [2], where information exists but is not available at the time it is needed.

Assignment of auditors by competence, availability and geography

Assigning the right auditor to each file is not a simple problem. It requires crossing at least three variables: the auditor's technical competence for the type of certification requested, its availability on the required dates and its geographical location with respect to the client's facilities.

In entities with several lines of certification and auditors spread across different autonomous communities or countries, this crossing is done manually, often with the information distributed between the email and the shared agenda.

The result is that the assignment depends on the individual knowledge of the person making it, not on a system that centralizes information. When there are last-minute changes—an auditor who cancels, a customer who advances their availability—the reorganization consumes time that should be dedicated to the certification itself.

Communication with the customer about the status of the file

The customer who has requested certification wants to know where their file is at. In many certification bodies, this information is provided by email on demand: the customer asks, someone checks the status in the system or in Excel and answers.

There is no portal where the customer can view the status of their file in real time, upload the required documentation or consult the auditing schedule.

77% of medium-sized companies manage their validation and monitoring processes via email, without automated traceability [3]. In a certification body accredited by ENAC, where the traceability of each decision is a regulatory requirement [5], managing communication with the customer via email is both an operational risk and a compliance risk.

The cost of the manual process

Professionals waste an average of 9.3 hours a week in manual monitoring processes, locating information and waiting for validations [4].

In a certification body with a team of 10 operations people, that is equivalent to more than 4,800 hours of work per year that does not add value to the certification process. Hours to be spent updating Excel, answering status emails and reorganizing assignments when something changes.

The problem isn't that a system is missing. The problem is that the system exists—the ERP, the email, the Excel—but it's not connected. Information about the file lives in three places at once, and the only way to get a full view is to ask someone. That “someone” is the bottleneck.

The architecture that solves the problem without replacing what already works

The solution does not require replacing the ERP or implementing a new document management system. The model that works in practice is to build a specific satellite tool for the certification file cycle, which integrates with existing systems so that data flows without duplication.

This tool covers four specific functions:

• a file management dashboard with real-time status and automatic alerts by phase and by deadline;
• a system for assigning auditors that crosses technical competencies, availability and geography;
• a customer portal with access to the status of the file and upload of documentation;
• and integration with the financial ERP so that billing is automatically generated at the close of the file.

All of this built on the data that the entity already has, without migrations or disruptions [7].

The result is that the Director of Operations can see in real time how many files are active, at what stage and which are at risk, without asking anyone. And the team of auditors can check their schedule, access the documentation of the file and record their observations from any device, without depending on someone updating the central Excel.

Bibliographic references

Methodological note: all statistics have been verified in the original sources before inclusion. The citations in superscript [N] refer to the APA references detailed below.

[1]MuleSoft/ Deloitte Digital/Vanson Bourne. (2024). Connectivity Benchmark Report 2024. https://www.deloitte.com/za/en/services/consulting/perspectives/2024-connectivity-benchmark-report.html — 81% of global IT leaders say that data silos block their digital transformation initiatives. On average, organizations manage more than 900 applications, of which only 28% are integrated together.

[2]ERP News. (2024). Electronic Workflow Process Gaps Kill an Estimated 20% of ERP Productivity. ERP News. https://erpnews.com/electronic-workflow-process-gaps-kill-an-estimated-20-of-erp-productivity/ — The gaps between what the ERP manages and what teams need to do destroy 20% of productivity in organizations that already have an ERP in place.

[3]Aberdeen Group. Cited in: FounderJar. (2024). The Ultimate List of ERP Statistics for 2025. https://www.founderjar.com/erp-statistics/ — 77% of medium-sized companies manage their approval and validation processes via email, without automated traceability. Only 23% use the workflow features of their ERP for these processes.

[4]McKinsey & Company. (2023). The State of Organizations 2023. McKinsey Global Institute. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/the-state-of-organizations-2023 — Professionals spend an average of 9.3 hours per week on approval and manual monitoring processes: finding information, confirming statuses, forwarding documents and waiting for validations.

[5]ENAC— National Accreditation Entity. (2024). 2024 Activity Report. ENAC. https://www.enac.es — ENAC accredits the technical competence of laboratories, certification and inspection bodies in Spain. Accredited certification bodies operate under the UNE-EN ISO/IEC 17021-1 standard, which establishes strict requirements for competence, impartiality and traceability of certification processes.

[6]PanoramaConsulting Group. (2024). The 2024 ERP Report. Panorama Consulting Group. https://4439340.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/4439340/Reports/ERP%20Report/2024-erp-report-panorama-consulting-group.pdf — 80% of medium-sized companies have ERP in place, but the gap between the processes that the ERP manages and the operational processes specific to the sector remains structural. 41% of organizations have created parallel tools (shadow IT) to cover these gaps.

[7]Deloitte & TUM School of Management. (2024). The Future of ERP: A Study on the Challenges and Opportunities of ERP Systems by 2030. https://image.marketing.deloitte.de/lib/fe31117075640474771d75/m/1/147c324b-c7f5-4884-b3f7-06cf12247406.pdf — 55.5% of respondents believe that ERPs will be a decisive competitive factor in 2030. Extensibility for specific sectoral processes is the most requested and least available capacity in current systems.

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