What this is
What is a document review record?
What is a document review record?
It is the evidence that a controlled document was examined against reality on a stated date and a decision was reached about it. The decision is one of five: no change needed, minor amendment, major revision, merge, or retire. The record is not the amended document; it is the proof that somebody competent looked, and what they concluded.
How does a document review differ from document control?
Document control governs the mechanics of issue, revision, approval, distribution and withdrawal. Review governs whether the content is still true. A document can be perfectly controlled, correctly versioned and completely wrong. Control answers 'is everyone using the right copy'; review answers 'is the right copy still right'.
What makes a review defensible rather than administrative?
Three things an auditor can test independently: that the review happened where the work does rather than at a desk, that the people who use the document were consulted, and that the version reviewed was current. Without those, the record proves only that a date was entered.
Scope
When is a document review record required?
This record covers the periodic test of one controlled document against current practice, law and usability. It sits between the register that lists the document and the control record that issues the next revision. Using it for work belonging to a neighbouring template produces records that cannot be reported on.
Use this template when
- A controlled document has reached the review date set by its own cycle and the owner is testing whether it is still true
- A process, plant item or organisational role referenced in a document has changed and the document must be tested against that change
- An audit finding, incident investigation or customer complaint has named a document as a contributing factor
- A regulatory change has been logged and you are working through which documents it touches
- You are clearing a backlog of documents that have run past their review interval, most commonly ahead of a certification audit
Do not use it for
- Document Control Record, which handles the issue, revision numbering, approval and withdrawal once the review has decided a change is needed.
- Records Retention Schedule, which governs how long completed records are kept and how they are destroyed, not whether a procedure is accurate.
- Regulatory Change Record, which captures the change in law itself; this record only captures the effect of that change on one document.
- Approval Workflow Record, which evidences who signed what and in which order, rather than whether the content survived scrutiny.
- Standards and Clause Register, which maps clauses to the system as a whole and is not a per-document instrument.
Compliance mapping
Which ISO 9001 cl.7.5 requirements does this satisfy?
The template is built against ISO 9001 cl.7.5 and the matching clauses in the other management system standards, which share the same wording on documented information. Each clause maps to a section that exists in the form.
| Clause | Requirement | Where it lands |
|---|---|---|
| ISO 9001 cl.7.5.2 | Documented information must be reviewed and approved for suitability and adequacy, not merely created and stored. | Outcome |
| ISO 9001 cl.7.5.3.1 | Documented information must be available and suitable for use where and when needed, which is a usability test as much as an availability one. | Usability |
| ISO 9001 cl.7.5.3.2 | Version control and the prevention of unintended use of obsolete documented information. | Outcome |
| ISO 9001 cl.8.5.6 | Changes to production and service provision must be reviewed and controlled, which is what drives an off-cycle review when a process changes. | Header |
| ISO 45001 cl.7.5.3 | Control of documented information, with the same review-and-currency obligation applied to the health and safety system. | Compliance |
| ISO 45001 cl.5.4 | Consultation and participation of workers, which is why a review that never asked the users is incomplete rather than merely thin. | Accuracy |
What it does not cover
- Reviewing the document rather than the practice, which produces a record asserting accuracy that the first workplace observation in an audit will contradict.
- Pushing the next review date out without an outcome decision, which leaves the register looking current while no judgement has been recorded about the content.
- Signing off a superseded version, which certifies the wrong document as current and breaks the version control the standard actually requires.
- Recording the review only in the system and never on the document itself, which means the person holding the paper copy at the job has no way to tell whether it has been checked.
- Marking the outcome as major revision and never raising the control record, which is how a known-wrong procedure stays in circulation for the whole of the next cycle.
Global
Document Review Record requirements by country
Document review is one of the few management system obligations that appears almost identically in voluntary standards and in hard law. Where it appears in law, the interval is usually fixed and the certification is personal.
29 CFR 1910.119(f)(3)
Process safety management operating procedures
For covered highly hazardous processes the employer must certify annually that the operating procedures are current and accurate. That is not a suggested cycle but an annual certification with a named certifier, and a review record with no workplace observation behind it is a weak basis for making it.
EudraLex Volume 4, Part I, Chapter 4
GMP documentation
Documents must be regularly reviewed and kept up to date, with any change authorised and superseded versions prevented from unintended use. Inspectors test the review interval against the last process change, and a document reviewed after a change without amendment attracts a direct question about how that conclusion was reached.
ISO 9001 cl.7.5.2 and ISO 45001 cl.7.5.2
Documented information
Both standards require review and approval for suitability and adequacy, deliberately without specifying an interval. The organisation sets its own cycle, which means the cycle itself becomes auditable: a five-year interval on a document governing a high-risk task is a finding even though five years breaches no stated rule.
How to complete it
How to complete a document review record, step by step
The form is quick to fill. What decides whether the record survives scrutiny is a small number of judgements the reviewer makes before touching it.
Observed At The Workplace is binary with no middle option, deliberately. A desk review can confirm internal consistency and cross references but not that the equipment named still exists, that the steps run in the stated order, or that the workaround everyone uses is absent from the text. If the honest answer is No, record No and accept the score; the alternative is a false attestation in a signed record.
Users Consulted offers Yes, Some and No, and Some is what most reviews deserve. The people who count are those who follow the document under normal conditions, not the supervisor who owns the area; where a document spans shifts, consulting one shift is Some. Precision here is what makes the Still Describes Actual Practice answer defensible rather than an opinion.
Review Outcome must be consistent with the Accuracy and Compliance answers above it. A record showing Still Meets Legal Requirements as Partly and Review Outcome as No change needed is contradictory, and reads as an owner protecting a review date. If the answers above are anything but clean, the outcome is at minimum a minor amendment.
Duplicates Another Document and Could Be Merged Or Retired are the fields owners skip fastest, because answering them honestly creates work. They are also the only mechanism the system has for shrinking. A document that duplicates another is not neutral: it guarantees the two will diverge, and the divergence will be found by an auditor or an incident rather than by a review.
What auditors find
Most common document review record findings
These findings recur when a document review programme is examined, with the clause each lands under.
| Finding | Clause | What fixes it |
|---|---|---|
| Documents past their stated review date, typically a long tail rather than a few | ISO 9001 cl.7.5.2 | Report against Months Since Last Review rather than against a boolean overdue flag, so the size of the drift is visible and the worst documents surface first. |
| Review recorded in the system but not on the document, so field copies carry no review date | ISO 9001 cl.7.5.3.2 | Treat Review Recorded On The Document as a gate on closure; a review that is invisible at the point of use has not reached the people it governs. |
| A superseded revision reviewed and signed as current | ISO 9001 cl.7.5.3.2 | Pull the document through the register link rather than from a local copy, and keep Reviewed Version Confirmed Current as a required field. |
| Procedures referencing decommissioned plant or roles that no longer exist | ISO 9001 cl.8.5.6 | Trigger off-cycle reviews from asset disposals and organisational changes rather than waiting for the scheduled date. |
| A regulatory change logged months earlier with no document review raised against it | ISO 45001 cl.6.1.3 | Use the Regulatory Change Record ID link in the Compliance section as a two-way check, so every logged change closes out against affected documents. |
| Review outcome of major revision with no corresponding control record or action | ISO 9001 cl.10.2 | Make the Control Record ID and CAPA ID fields mandatory on outcomes other than no change needed, so the decision cannot close without a downstream owner. |
Case in point
Case in point: the procedure that described a machine that had been sold
A packaging site ran a five-yearly review cycle on its operating procedures. One governed a filler replaced two years earlier by a different make on a different control philosophy. It had been reviewed once in that period, at a desk, by an owner who confirmed the formatting, cross references and approval signatures and closed it as no change needed.
It surfaced when a new operator followed the written sequence and could not find the step described. Nothing was hurt, but the investigation asked one question the site could not answer: what else had been reviewed that way? Twenty-two procedures shared the same reviewer, afternoon and outcome. The corrective action was not a rewrite but making workplace observation and user consultation compulsory, which cut how many reviews could close in a day and made the real backlog visible.
The template
The template, field by field
The form exactly as it installs. Every field, option, score and conditional rule is editable, and the links to other templates come with it.
5 sections
- Reference
- CMP-023
- Archetype
- Record
- Record ID
- DRR-2026-000
- Scoring
- Currency percent
- Direction
- High is good
- Singleton
- No
- Basis
- ISO 9001 cl.7.5
- Links
- Links Document Register
- Tags
- Governance, Documentation
- Sections
- 5
- Fields
- 43
- Follow up fields
- 3
- Repeating sections
- 0
- Links out
- 5
Header
12 fieldsReview ID*
Auto sequence. Format DRR-2026-000.
The record's own ID. Other templates point at this value.
Status*
Drives who this goes to next.
- Planned2 pts
- In progress2 pts
- Complete3 pts
- Deferred0 pts
- Open0 pts
- Closed3 pts
- Overdue0 pts
Date and Time*
Completed By*
Site*
Site ID*
Format SITE-000.
Links to FDN-001 Site ID
Governing Document
Document ID
Format DOC-0000.
Links to FDN-008 Document ID
Review Trigger*
Reviewer*
Months Since Last Review*
Ask Whether It Is Still True
Documents drift out of date quietly. The test is not whether it is well written but whether it describes what people actually do and what the standard now requires.
Accuracy
6 fieldsStill Describes Actual Practice*
- Yes3 pts
- Partly1 pt
- No0 pts
Observed At The Workplace*
Review the document standing where the work happens, not at a desk.
- Yes3 pts
- No0 pts
Users Consulted*
- Yes3 pts
- Some1 pt
- No0 pts
Equipment Referenced Still Exists*
- Yes3 pts
- Partly1 pt
- No0 pts
Roles Referenced Still Exist*
- Yes3 pts
- Partly1 pt
- No0 pts
Cross References Still Valid*
- Yes3 pts
- Partly1 pt
- No0 pts
Compliance
6 fieldsStill Meets Legal Requirements*
- Yes3 pts
- Partly1 pt
- No0 pts
Still Meets Standard Requirements*
- Yes3 pts
- Partly1 pt
- No0 pts
Still Meets Customer Requirements
- Yes3 pts
- Partly1 pt
- No0 pts
Regulatory Changes Since Last Review*
- None3 pts
- Some1 pt
- Significant0 pts
Regulatory Change Record ID
Links to CMP-012 Record ID
Incidents Since That Should Change It*
- None3 pts
- Yes0 pts
Usability
5 fieldsClear And Usable*
- Yes3 pts
- Partly1 pt
- No0 pts
Right Length*
A forty page procedure nobody reads controls nothing. Shorter is usually safer.
- Yes3 pts
- Too long1 pt
- Too brief0 pts
Duplicates Another Document*
- No3 pts
- Partly1 pt
- Yes0 pts
Could Be Merged Or Retired*
- No3 pts
- Yes1 pt
Visual Aids Would Help
- Already has them3 pts
- Yes1 pt
- No2 pts
Outcome
14 fieldsReview Outcome*
No change needed, minor amendment, major revision, merge, or retire.
- No change needed3 pts
- Minor amendment2 pts
- Major revision1 pt
- Merge2 pts
- Retire2 pts
Changes Required
Control Record ID
Links to CMP-022 Record ID
Reviewed Version Confirmed Current*
- Yes3 pts
- Superseded version reviewed0 pts
Review Recorded On The Document*
- Yes3 pts
- No0 pts
Next Review Due*
Action Required*
Raise the action record, then enter its reference here.
- No2 pts
- Yes0 pts
Priority
- High0 pts
- Medium1 pt
- Low3 pts
CAPA ID
Format CAPA-2026-00000.
Links to FDN-014 CAPA ID
Action Owner
Reviewer*
Signature*
Document Owner*
Second Signature*
CMP-023 · record IDs look like DRR-2026-000 · Links Document Register
Open in KnowellaRun it with agents
From a document you fill in to a programme that runs itself
Reviewing one document is straightforward. Keeping several hundred inside their own intervals, routing each to an owner who will actually walk the job, and connecting regulatory changes to the documents they touch is where programmes fail.
Holds the register and the review cycle against each entry, raises the review when the interval or a logged regulatory change demands it, and reports currency by risk band rather than as one percentage.
Connects review outcomes to the nonconformities and complaints that named a document, so procedures that keep appearing in investigations move up the review order rather than waiting for their date.
Flags the training packages built on a document whenever its review closes with an amendment, so competence records are not left certifying a version that no longer exists.
Coordinates the crew, surfaces the reviews closed in suspicious clusters and the outcomes with no downstream record, and holds every write for your approval before it touches a record.
This template lives in KnowComply — audit and governance. Audit programmes, legal register, management review, risk and certification.
Meet KnowComply→Glossary
Document Review Record definitions and key terms
- Controlled document
- A document whose issue, revision and withdrawal are governed, so only one version is authoritative at a time and obsolete copies are removed from use.
- Review cycle
- The maximum interval the organisation sets between reviews of a given document, usually varied by risk rather than applied uniformly across the register.
- Currency
- The proportion of controlled documents within their own review interval. The score this template feeds, where high is good.
- Superseded version
- A revision replaced by a later one. Reviewing a superseded version invalidates the review, because the conclusion attaches to a document nobody uses.
- Off-cycle review
- A review triggered by an event rather than the calendar: a regulatory change, a process change, an incident or an audit finding.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about document review record
How long should a review interval be?+
Set it by risk, not by convenience. Documents governing high-hazard tasks, regulated processes or frequently changing plant belong on annual or biennial cycles; low-risk administrative documents can run longer. A uniform five-year interval across the whole register generates standing findings, because it is obviously not risk-based.
Is 'no change needed' an acceptable outcome?+
Yes, and for a stable document it is the correct one. What is not acceptable is a register where it is the outcome for nearly everything. That pattern means the reviews are testing the document against itself rather than against practice.
Does the reviewer have to be someone other than the owner?+
The standards do not require it, but the template captures both because separating them is worth doing. An owner reviewing their own document tends to confirm what they already believe. Where the two must be the same person, take the second signature from someone who uses the document rather than from a manager.
What happens if the review finds the document is wrong?+
The review closes with an outcome of minor amendment or major revision, and the change is made through the document control record. The review record stays as it is: evidence of the finding, not the vehicle for the fix. Where the document has been wrong in service, raise a corrective action too.
Should retired documents still be reviewed?+
No, but they must be withdrawn properly rather than left in the register unreviewed. A retirement decision reached at review is closed out through the control record, and the retention schedule then governs how long the withdrawn version is kept.
Can the template be changed?+
Yes. Every field, option, score and conditional rule is editable, and the links to the document register, regulatory change record and control record come with it. Most teams run it as it is for one cycle, then tighten the required fields once they see which are being skipped.
Keep going
Related templates and programmes
Industries this is written for
Programmes this belongs to
Used together in Management System Governance
Legal and Other Requirements Register
Lists every law, regulation, permit and commitment that applies to your operation
Compliance Obligation Assessment
Assesses how each legal requirement applies to you and what you do to meet it
Compliance Evaluation Record
Records the periodic evaluation of whether you actually comply with each obligation
Regulatory Change Record
Records a change in law or regulation and what it means for you
Regulatory Inspection Record
Records a visit by a regulator, including what was inspected, what was said and any orders issued
Management Review Record
Records the periodic review of the management system by senior leadership, covering performance, risks, resources and improvement
Written and reviewed by
Siddarth Singh
Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Knowella
Certified Safety Professional and industrial and systems engineer with more than a decade inside food supply chain, freight and manufacturing operations. This page was written against the current text of the standards it cites, not against secondary summaries of them.
- Certified Safety Professional (CSP), Board of Certified Safety Professionals
- MBA, University of Chicago Booth School of Business
- MS and BS, The Ohio State University, Industrial and Systems Engineering
- Six Sigma Black Belt
Sources and last review. Reviewed 16 August 2026 against:
- ISO 9001:2015 cl.7.5 — Documented information
- ISO 45001:2018 cl.7.5 — Documented information
- 29 CFR 1910.119(f) — Process safety management, operating procedures
This page is general guidance, not legal advice. Confirm requirements with your jurisdiction’s regulator.