Filing is not the expensive part. Reassembling, months after the fact, the proof
that something was done properly — that is where the hours go.
“Who approved this, and when?”
Every document carries a tracking number from the moment it is stored. Where it went through an approval chain, each approver’s name, decision, comment and timestamp sit on the record itself — not in an email thread somebody has to go and find.
“Who has had access to this document?”
Every view, preview, download and print is recorded against the document with the person and the time. The list is on the document’s own page.
“Where is the signed contract, the supplier’s data sheet, the certificate?”
Documents that come from outside are filed and indexed the same way as your own. Optionally the file itself stays in your own SharePoint, OneDrive or Google Drive and is checked out there, so nobody edits it around the system by accident.
“Show me the training record for this operator — and the evidence it worked.”
The application, the course and its cost, the approval chain that cleared it, and the section where the employee records how the learning came back into the job. It files itself against the employee as a document.
“Why was this rejected, and by whom?”
A job travels through its steps carrying everything gathered so far, decisions included. When somebody rejects, holds or escalates, the decision and the reason are attached to the case and visible to every later step — so the “why” survives the person who decided it.
None of that is a report somebody runs when the question arrives. It is the
by-product of people doing the work in the system in the first place.