When this one reaches me the manual is written and the registers are filled in. What is left is the part only you can do, which is reading it and telling us where we have described the business slightly wrong. That is usually an hour of your time, not a project.
Further guidance on manuals and registers:
Every document used on this service is on the shelf. Take the ISO toolkit for your standards and do the work in your own time, and Document Preparation will put your company name and logo on the whole set.
IMS Manual and Registers Preparation
The manual is the document an auditor opens first. The registers are what it stands on. They are one job, because a manual that names responsibilities the registers do not carry, or a register pointing at a document the manual has dropped, fails in exactly the same way as either one being wrong on its own.
A day of our remote support completes both. You send us your details and whatever you already have, and the manual comes back written around your business with the registers behind it populated and agreeing with it.
What You Get in the Manual
- Scope of registration - drafted in the form a certification body expects, describing what you do rather than repeating the standard back at itself
- Exclusions - any requirement treated as non-applicable, with the justification written out, or a clear statement that nothing has been excluded
- Company profile and details - your trading address, registration details and a written profile of the business
- Responsibilities - every responsibility field completed against the names you give us, rather than left as prompts to work through later
- The update log started - issue number, issue date, controlled by and approved by, with the initial issue entry written in
- Standards table set to your standards - and sections belonging to standards you are not certifying moved out of the way rather than left to confuse people
What You Get in the Registers
- Document register - your actual documents, with filing paths corrected to where your files really live and retention set to what you really do
- Business continuity register - your critical functions and the arrangements that cover them
- Opportunities and risks register - a SWOT worked around your business, with the numbering and the policy references made good
- Training, competence and communication registers - set up against your people and your arrangements
- Interested parties and objectives - populated so the manual sections drawing on them have something real to draw on
- Every register checked before it comes back - so what you receive reads as your organisation's own record, which is what an assessor is looking for
- References made good - a register pointing at a document you are not using gets chased down rather than left to be found at audit
How Much One Day Covers
The manual and the register set, for most organisations. We do not put a cap on the number of registers or the length of the manual, because the count is rarely what decides how long a job takes. A wide scope, several sites or four or more standards will take longer than a single site working to one. The more context and information you give us, the better what we prepare will be. We work through as much as the time allows, in the order that matters most to you.
How the Work Gets Done
We use our own AI tooling to do the mechanical part of document preparation, and a consultant checks the output before it reaches you. It is the reason a day of support now produces far more finished documentation than it used to, at the same price it always was.
The tooling handles the volume - the branding, the properties, the responsibility fields, filling a document register and aligning it to a real folder tree, then checking every other register and every manual section for references to files that are no longer there. That work used to eat most of a consultant's day and none of it needed a consultant's judgement.
The judgement stays with the consultant: what your scope should actually say, whether an exclusion will survive an audit, who should own a risk, and whether the manual describes a business an assessor would recognise.
Why a Day Goes This Far
Anyone can rent the same AI we use. What they cannot rent is what we point it at.
Behind this service is a document library built over 25 years - manuals, procedures, policies, registers, risk assessments, COSHH assessments, audit checklists and forms, covering every standard we work to and most situations a management system runs into. Each one has been through real audits, and corrected where an assessor pushed back. That is the part that took 25 years, and it is the part that cannot be generated.
Our tooling applies that library to your business. A general purpose AI, pointed at the same job, has nothing to apply, so it writes something that reads well and describes a company that does not exist.
What We Need From You
- Your company details, registration number and trading address
- A description of what your business does, including anything you want kept out of scope
- Which standards you are working to, and which you intend to certify
- Who holds which responsibility
- A listing or screenshot of the folder structure your documents actually sit in
- Your existing manual and registers, in whatever state they are in
Other Things Remote Support Covers
A support day does not have to be spent on the manual and registers. The same day can be pointed at any one of these instead, and it is the same purchase either way:
- Enhanced IMS Setup - the whole file set branded and set up, with the manual and registers as part of it
- Risk Assessment Reformatting and Hazard Register - your existing assessments moved into one format and indexed
- COSHH Assessment Preparation - existing COSHH reworked, or built from your safety data sheets
- Legal Register Preparation - your legal register and its written summary
- Environmental Registers and Aspects Assessment - aspects and impacts, life cycle review and a carbon management plan
- Information Security Risk and Treatment Plan - assets, risks, treatment and the Statement of Applicability
- Personal Data Register and Privacy Notice Preparation - your record of processing with AI written in, and privacy notices to match
- AI Policy and Risk Register - your AI tools, the risks and controls against each, and what AI may not do
- Business Risk Assessment Preparation - organisational risk written around your business
- Company Forms, Policies and HR Reset - your policy set, staff handbook and HR forms as one branded set
- Full Clause Conversion Service - an existing ISO clause-based system reviewed and rebuilt around your business processes
- Constructionline, SSIP and CAS Application Support - your pre-qualification questionnaire completed and the evidence behind it prepared
A day can also go on things that are not document preparation at all - training, internal audits, a gap analysis, or simply working through a problem on a call. Remote Support - Project is the same day bought without a job attached to it.
Every one of these services is listed on the ISO consultancy support page, along with how a support day works and what is covered by a subscription.