I recently did some work with a precious metals company that had some very unique compliance requirements that in part also occur with many financial services firms.
The issue relates to disclosures. In a real estate transaction you have lots of disclosures but they are written and reviewed prior to or during the visit to the Escrow office.
What happens when many of these need to be conveyed over the phone and then archived for future reference? What if they also need to include order specific information such as pricing or quantity information? Additionally, how do you insure that updating the compliance script in the future won’t overwrite previously saved versions that are only valid if kept as they were read originally?
The last requirement is the most important and challenging one to implement, especially in light of custom information to be included within the text to be read to the client.
The first option many would choose here is to use text formulas which work great for simple statements that will have minimal or insignificant changes in the future. However, since changes to formulas are global, they must be changed with care as they will automatically update previous records and leave no trace since formula fields currently can’t be included in Field History. This will work for some but certainly not all as legal language will have to change over time without overwriting data on previous records.
The best option is to separate all the necessary information into simple descriptions that have custom, order specific data that use formulas such as:
"Your order today, December 12, 2010, will be for $58,434.92."
and more detailed disclaimers and proscriptions that use field default values such as:
"You understand that the purchase of physical precious metals does not pay dividends, interest, or earned income and may lose value."
Salesforce.com Field Default Value
By using field default values for the key aspects that are read to the client, you avoid the issue of overwriting by field updating as changing the field default value only affects future records, not previous ones. The formula values will update previous records but since they are simple and descriptive when done correctly, it will be insignificant.
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Happy new year.
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