How SharePoint Improves Auditing and Compliance?

If you have been in the business world for some time, then you already know how critical auditing and compliance is. Whether you sell products or offer custom solutions, there are rules and regulations for every business to adhere to. Failing or violating these rules means imposing strict actions and penalties upon yourself. These consequences are severe and in most scenarios, where the case is critical can lead to the closure of a company.

Whether you are an owner of a large-scale organization or running a startup, you can’t miss out on these government-imposed rules. However, ensuring this becomes challenging when you are sticking to old-school methods for your daily operations. In a modern age, it's important to stick to new tools that help with compliance such as Microsoft SharePoint. Apart from document management and collaborating capabilities, SharePoint has evolved into an effective solution for streamlining compliance efforts and improving audit readiness.

But this is definitely hard to understand right? Worry not, this article will further explain how SharePoint plays a pivotal role in auditing and compliance. Keep reading to uncover more.

5 Ways SharePoint Can Improve Auditing and Compliance

By embracing this modern-day solution, you not only streamline your daily operations but also ensure you are operating according to rules and regulations. Microsoft has several advantages such as improved data security, a range of auditing features, better visibility and accountability, enhanced governance, and accurate audit reports. All of these are crucial to make sure everything is being done the right way. Scroll down to learn more about all this in detail.

Here are five ways SharePoint can improve your auditing and compliance.

1.    Improved Data Security

Ever wondered why Microsoft is used among others? It's because of their top-notch security. All their releases come with reliable security and SharePoint is also the same. This tool also has some advanced security to keep malicious actors at bay. Some of its features allow businesses to know who has access to specific documents and folders. Owners can manage this through permission settings, user roles, and group-based access controls.

This isn’t only what you get, there are also features like data encryption and multi-factor authentication. Additionally, when you integrate all this with Microsoft Defender, it can further strengthen the security of this solution.

2.    Range of Auditing Features

Ever imagined something that comes with a built-in auditing feature? Well, you don’t have to imagine anymore because SharePoint has made it a reality. You can monitor who viewed, edited, deleted, or shared a document, everything becomes transparent for auditors. These detailed audit trails provide valuable insight into what’s going on in your organization.

Do you know what’s better? It’s the customizable audit logs allow administrators to filter data based on user, document, or timeframe. This further simplifies investigations faster and more precise during compliance reviews or security incidents. Plus, SharePoint integrates smoothly with Microsoft Purview which can further extend your compliance capabilities.

3.    Better Visibility and Accountability

Auditing and compliance depend heavily on transparency and user accountability. SharePoint provides organizations with the tools to achieve both by offering centralized dashboards, activity tracking, and document version histories. Every user action—whether it's editing a file, moving it, or sharing it—is logged and traceable.

This visibility empowers compliance officers and managers to quickly identify who is responsible for each action and when it occurred, minimizing ambiguity in audit reviews. Additionally, built-in alerts and notifications can flag suspicious activity or policy breaches in real time, enabling quicker responses to potential threats.

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4.    Enhanced Governance

Effective governance is the backbone of any successful compliance strategy, and SharePoint is designed to support it from the ground up. Organizations can implement document retention policies, enforce naming conventions, and establish approval workflows directly within the SharePoint environment.

These features ensure that records are managed consistently and align with internal or external regulatory standards. SharePoint also allows you to classify documents using metadata and labels, which makes it easier to organize, retrieve, and apply rules for archiving or deletion. This helps prevent outdated or unauthorized files from remaining in circulation, a common compliance pitfall in many organizations.

5.    Accurate Audit Reports

To ensure you are compliant at every stage of your business, you need reliable and accurate audit reports. SharePoint simplifies this too through its automated generation of audit logs and compliance reports. These reports can include everything you can think of. Be it records of file access, changes, deletions, and permissions, you name it. This makes it easier to demonstrate regulatory compliance during inspections or internal reviews.

People with authority can also customize reports according to specific needs such as department-level activity or particular document types. You can also keep reports by exporting them for future reference. This ensures your organization has a record of all the essential data available when it's needed. However, despite all these advantages, implementing SharePoint seamlessly is a challenge to tackle too.

For this, you can consider https://www.xeratekuae.com/ tailored solutions to help you implement SharePoint flawlessly.

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Make Auditing and Compliance Simpler with SharePoint

Handling tons of data on a spreadsheet or through any other outdated method makes it hard to get compliant. Simplify everything with the implementation of SharePoint. Contact professionals today for a seamless transition from traditional document management to SharePoint.