Proper forms maintenance is a critical aspect of credit union operations, yet it is often overlooked. In this blog post, we’ll explain why maintaining up-to-date forms is essential for credit unions and provide some best practices for your forms maintenance processes.
1. Stay Diligent with Form Updates
Regularly updating your credit union’s forms, including those from third-party vendors, ensures compliance and minimizes legal liabilities. Implementing a regular process for form maintenance demonstrates your commitment to both compliance and member satisfaction.
Best Practices
- Establish a process for updating internal and third-party vendor forms
- Create a Form Maintenance spreadsheet to ensure all forms are reviewed and updated regularly
2. Capitalize on New Field Mappings
Updating form fields can reduce user keystrokes, input errors, and enhance the overall member experience. With nearly each KeyStone Release new mappable fields are being introduced; capitalize on these system updates to gain efficiency benefits. Proactively updating forms after each KeyStone Release will improve your credit union’s operations and overall user experience.
Best Practices
- After each KeyStone Release, review the KeyStone Release Notes for new form fields being introduced to update your organization’s forms accordingly
- Continuously evaluate fields on existing forms for opportunities to reduce input errors and enhance your members’ experience
3. Formalize Forms Clean-Up
Formalize a procedure to regularly assess your forms to determine if they are still necessary, have been replaced or combined with another form. At this time, it is often also advisable to review established Form Packets for completeness and cleanliness; are there forms that are no longer needed for that process? Are some missing and users being forced to navigate to another document screen? Do new form packets need to be established? This clean-up process cultivates organization and sets the credit union up for less stress and more success.
Best Practices
- Conduct periodic reviews of forms to identify those that can be removed or combined
- During these reviews assess form packets for correct configuration and inclusion of all necessary forms
Proper forms maintenance is crucial for efficient and accurate credit union operations. By following the best practices outlined above, credit unions can enhance efficiency, reduce errors, maintain compliance and avoid penalties. If you need assistance reviewing your forms, implementing best practices, or have any other KeyStone forms questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to a Trellance team member today!
Adam Lucier is a Keystone business analyst at Trellance.
