ISO 9001:2015 requires businesses to keep accurate and up-to-date documentation, but it doesn’t provide guidelines for how often to review documents.
Most businesses decide to include a review schedule when they set up their document control and other ISO 9001 procedures. Many of our customers choose to review documentation about once a year.
While this isn’t an ISO 9001 requirement, it is a good frequency for most businesses. You can review documents more often if you choose, but this could be a waste of resources.
How often you decide to review your ISO 9001 documents depends largely on how often your ISO 9001 procedures change.
Is it necessary to schedule formal ISO 9001 document reviews?
Most organizations update and change their ISO 9001 procedures at some point to stay compliant, especially as they grow and start offering more products or services.
If you review your documents every time these procedures are updated, additional review processes might not be necessary. In this case, it might be a waste of resources to implement yearly reviews.
On the other hand, if your procedures don’t change frequently or reviews aren’t automatically done every time there is a change, then a separate, structured document review schedule is a good idea.
Factors affecting how often to review documents for ISO 9001
As mentioned, there is no official ISO 9001 requirement to review documentation, only that you keep accurate documentation.
This means the frequency of a review process should be based on what you think is reasonable for your business and your ISO 9001 procedures.
If you don’t update your procedures very frequently, you might decide that an annual review is sufficient.
This might be reduced to six months or less if your company’s procedures change frequently and reviewing isn’t a part of this process.
If you run your management systems diligently but processes don’t change often, once every two years might be sufficient.
So, there’s no set-in-stone answer. In fact, the answer might change over time from when you first set up your document control system.
However, no matter how frequently you decide to review documents, a centralized document management system will help you ensure reviews are done properly and on schedule.
How isoTracker’s Document Management software can help
Our document management software module helps you ensure that documents are properly reviewed and managed.
The system makes it easy to:
At isoTracker, our entire quality management system is modular and subscription-based, so you only need to buy the modules that your business needs. The cloud-based system also ensures documentation is secure and access-controlled.
Sign up for a full-access free 60-day trial of isoTracker’s quality management software and get ongoing support, including advice on how often to review documents for ISO 9001.
