Document circulation is an important part of the workflow

Document management is understood as the rules by which the signed decisions within the enterprise or institution are advanced from the moment they are received to the archival storage. The basis of this concept is the receipt of the document, its consideration, transfer to executive bodies, carrying out organizational measures for execution, certification, registration, sending for storage.

This is a process that takes into account the instances of document movement, together with the speed of its movement through these instances. Document turnover is a process that must be correlated with the information activity of the administrative apparatus, with the documentation of each individual decision, the storage of newly received documents.

A huge number of shortcomings in the activities of many management apparatus is due precisely to the poor organization of the movement of documents. For example, the process of circulation of a management decision document should include three mandatory components:

• Information support of the decision (this includes reliable information that confirms the correctness of the decision);
• Documenting the decision itself (administrative document);
• Control over implementation (which includes the organization of the proposed work, the methods of accomplishing the task, compliance with terms and conditions).

As can be seen from the above example, the workflow is the collection of information on the basis of which an administrative decision will be issued; Preparation of the solution itself, including editing, negotiation, drafting up to approval. All these stages require the movement of the document not only between the structural subdivisions of the enterprise, but also between performers, from technicians, specialists, to executives. The conclusion from this example is that the higher the speed of document movement, the higher the quality of its execution at each specific stage, the better the process of managing the enterprise as a whole.

The term itself appeared in the literature back in the 1920s. At that time, it was believed that the workflow was the organization of work aimed at the rational construction of the state apparatus as a whole, the distribution of responsibilities among the various performers and services. In 1931, the Institute of Management Technology made the first attempt to regulate the unified principles of organization of records management. The rules were laid down, according to which reception, delivery of documents, rules of execution, regulation of signing should be made. The next stages in the development of the economy have received legislative regulation of such a concept as clerical work, where the main emphasis was on individual technical operations. The program of document circulation by these legislative acts was not mentioned, although in essence everything amounted to the organization of documents movement. Since 1974, the main document regulating the whole process of document circulation has been signed, which is in effect up to the present.

This legislative act is called the "Uniform State System of Document Management" (YGSD), whose points are devoted to the organization of documents movement, technological methods of their processing and application rules. In this collection the main rule is formulated: "Document circulation is an operative movement of a document along the shortest path, including the minimum expenditure of time and labor." Only by applying the approved rule in practice, one can count on improving the life of the country's population, the growth of the state's economy.

To achieve these goals, we need smart, disciplined, responsible managers, for whom the implementation of document management based on the YGSD will be a matter of honor and conscience.