Records management with

360 Documents

Product features

Conformance with ISO 15489-1:2016 and GeBüV

Swiss electronic records management system, audit-proof DMS and eArchiving solution for organizations with high accountability standards


Last update: 17 May 2025


Topics covered


Accounting records

AML records

eArchiving solution

Code of Conduct FMH

Data Lifecycle Management (DLM)

Document Management System

eDiscovery during legal holds

Education records

eHealth / Electronic patient record

Enterprise Content Management

HR records

Information architecture (IA)

ISO 15489-1:2016

ISO 16175-1:2020

Knowledge management system

Legal retention requirements

Practice management software (PMS)

Medical records

Modern full-text search

PDF/A format validation

Records & Information Management

Recordkeeping requirements

Single Source of Truth (SSoT)

Storage as a Service (STaaS)

University records

"360 Documents secures critical documents - and brings them to life"

Comply with Swiss document retention law.


Are your accounting records, personnel files, student data, medical histories and AML records, archived lawfully (CO, GeBüV, VAT Act, FADP, FMH, AMLO-FINMA)?

Reduce dependencies on external providers.


Regain control over your data by insourcing files from third parties such as legacy archive providers, fiduciaries, IT companies and bring them under central governance.

One repository - one single source of truth.


Get a global perspective on who can inspect which files and avoid errors by granting users access to the same standardized information through a single permissions portal.

Turn unstructured data into business intelligence.


Gain insights from raw data thanks to OCR. Have PDFs summarized and questions answered solely with company knowledge, not Internet knowledge.

Take company knowledge to your people.


Make it easy for your team to find and work with documents. Engage your archive daily and lower the risk of sanctions because files cannot be found after years.

Pay as you go (PAYG) with dynamic file storage.


Optimize your cloud storage costs when retrieval patterns change with smart tiering by automatically moving rarely used PDFs to the most cost-effective access tier.

What are the benefits of 360 Documents


360 Documents is a highly available Swiss document management system (DMS) and an audit-proof e-Archiving solution embedded in an office suite with sophisticated records retention and document lifecycle management functionalities for organizations with high accountability standards.


360 Documents complies with ISO 15489 ("Records management") and the Swiss Business Records Ordinance ("GeBüV"), as it registers all user interactions with documents and prevents them from being deleted without leaving a trace. Part of the reason for using 360 Documents is therefore the enhanced evidential value of an organization’s records because of the way in which they can be shown to have been managed.


In terms of usability, 360 Documents enables companies and public authorities in Switzerland to extract and index extensive metadata during document capture, including through user-defined identifiers, and apply disposal schedules based on business classes.


The Swiss legal retention periods for the most important document types in Switzerland are already preconfigured in 360 Documents:


Private sector


  • Accounting records: retain for 10 years from the end of the financial year in which the last entry was made (here)
  • HR records: retain for 5 - 10 years from the date of departure (here)
  • AML records: retain for 10 years (data residency Switzerland) from termination of the business relationship (here)
  • AML transactions: retain for 10 years (data residency Switzerland) from completion of the transaction


Public sector


  • Medical records: retain for 20 years from the last entry in the patient file (here)
  • Educational records: retain for 1 - 50 years and until all available legal remedies are exhausted (here)
  • University records: retain for 18 months - 20 years from the exam date or completion date of the curriculum


Public administration


  • Civil status files: retain for 50 years
  • Documents of debt collection and municipal offices: retain for 2 / 10 / 15 / 20 / 30 years
  • Records of guardianship proceedings: retain for 50 years
  • Records from adoption proceedings: retain for 100 years
  • Social benefits records: retain for 15 years
  • HR records: retain for 10 years
  • Pension fund records: retain for 10 years
  • Budget, annual financial statements and annual report: retain for 50 years
  • Accounting and inventory: retain for 30 years
  • Accounting records: retain for 10 years
  • Tax records: retain for 25 years
  • VAT records: retain for 10 years


The multilingual software in the Swiss public cloud provides its users with a variety of advanced search mechanisms, from literal to synonyms search to the targeted prompting of best-in-class LLMs in German, English, French and Italian.


What features should modern document management software have?


With a digital archiving software in the cloud, Swiss companies and public authorities can store their most important documents electronically without having to keep the originals. We believe that a high-performance records and document management system is the prerequisite for any serious digital transformation project in Switzerland.


Almost all employees in Swiss companies work with documents today. A good DMS or enterprise content management (ECM) software in Switzerland must therefore consider the needs of a wide range of stakeholders:


  • For management, it is of key importance to maintain an overview of all information resources and to easily manage role-based access control (RBAC) using an intuitive authorization system
  • For the legal department, it is essential that archived PDF files comply with legal retention requirements and can be used as evidence in Swiss courts
  • For accounting and controlling, what matters is being able to logically link the supporting documents stored in the archive to commonly used accounting software
  • The external auditor appreciates being able to check documents directly in the primary system at the file-producing location without having to create a special data room
  • Operational staff want to be able to immediately reintegrate archived documents into daily business processes and access them in milliseconds
  • And the IT department is looking for ways to transfer data to peripheral systems via APIs, ensure that documents are protected against cyberattacks, and, if necessary, migrate to another data center smoothly


360 Documents allows cross-functional digitization of business operations


  • Comply with Swiss recordkeeping law: Observe recordkeeping and document retention legislation in Switzerland (here) and make sure the archive is audit proof
  • Digitize the accounting, controlling and audit process in one go: electronic bookkeeping (here) retrieves daily business records at the touch of a button and the dreaded VAT audit (here) can take place remotely
  • Benefit from faster retrieval times (milliseconds) compared to archives on tape drives (here) or other on-premises storage devices and relieve your staff from the associated IT overhead
  • Harvest supposedly "dark data": dark data is invisible data (here) that your company processes as part of its regular business activities but fails to see or understand
  • Operationalize business data across your organization with a single source of truth (SSoT): engage customers, automate business processes and foster collaboration by eliminating information silos
  • Define and monitor precise access controls: grant access to individual documents, data rooms or entire markets and give permission to external stakeholders such as accountants, auditors, supervisory bodies, regulators, shareholders or investors
  • Use OCR and intelligent document processing (here) to turn raw data into business insights and marvel at unexpected correlations
  • Find a wide spectrum of enterprise search tools at your fingertips, from verbatim to synonyms search up to the targeted prompting of large language models (here) to summarize long PDFs or get the confidential answer to a sensitive question from several documents


Retention triggers


In Switzerland, legal retention periods typically beginat the end of an observation period (the financial year) or the last legal transaction (for example, after liquidation of a company, termination of a mandate contract, account closure date, end of the medical treatment contract).


What is an authoritative record


According to Swiss contract law, accounting records must be retained "on paper, electronically or in a comparable manner, provided that correspondence with the underlying business transactions and circumstances is guaranteed and they can be made readable again at any time" (Art. 958f para. 3 CO).


The Swiss Business Records Ordinance is the implementing provision of Swiss contract law in the field of recordkeeping. It stipulates the principles according to which documents must be archived in Switzerland in accordance with the law:


  • Integrity (authenticity and inalterability): "The accounting records must be recorded and stored in such a way that they cannot be changed without this being detectable" (Art. 3 GeBüV).
  • Documentation: "Depending on the type and scope of the business, the organization, responsibilities, processes and procedures and the infrastructure (machines and programs) used to keep and store the business records must be documented in work instructions in such a way that the business records and accounting documents can be understood. Work instructions must be updated and stored in accordance with the same principles and for the same length of time as the business records themselves" (Art. 4 GeBüV).
  • Availability: "Accounting records must be stored in such a way that they can be inspected and examined by an authorized person within a reasonable period of time until the end of the retention period" (Art. 6 GeBüV).
  • Archival: "The information must be systematically catalogued and protected against unauthorized access. All access must be recorded. These records are subject to the same retention obligation as the data carriers themselves" (Art. 8 GeBüV).


What is the meaning of PDF/A


PDF/A means Portable Document Format (A stands for archival). In contrast to the Tag Image File Format (TIFF), PDF/A enjoys a high level of acceptance across industries. It is practically the prescribed file format for archiving - in the EU and overseas. For example, the US Supreme Court requires documents submitted electronically must be in the PDF/A format.


To quote ISO 19005 - Document management - Electronic document file format for long-term preservation (PDF/A), "PDF/A [...] provides a mechanism for representing electronic documents in a manner that preserves their visual appearance over time, independent of the tools and systems used for creating, storing or rendering the files" (here).


In essence, the PDF/A format differs from its PDF original in that it prohibits functions that are unsuitable for long-term archiving (such as audio and video content, executable files, password protection, encryption, links to external content, etc.). Ultimately, the files in an audit-proof Swiss cloud archive must be self-sufficient with all key document features such as content, fonts and color embedded.


360core uses high-throughput PDF to PDF/A-2b conformance converters in its archiving engine to convert PDF to PDF/A-2b. We perform regular PDF/A validation tests throughout the lifecycle of our archive assets.


When do emails need to be archived?


In some cases, it is necessary to archive emails with business relevance outside of Outlook (MS Exchange), for example to preserve messages from former employees, to organize (structure) correspondence on a specific subject, or to secure evidence in the context of a disposal hold or legal hold. Archiving emails prevents business correspondence from being accidentally deleted, manipulated, or modified at a later date, and ensures that it remains readily available and admissible as evidence in the event of a lawsuit.


Email archiving software simplifies legal discovery and compliance with Swiss freedom of information laws (here) or GDPR requests and eliminates the need to search multiple networks and local drives.


Archiving of websites


In 2017 the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) released a notice (here) stating all businesses engaged in digital communications are required to keep a record. This includes website data, social media posts, and messages.


Supported file extensions


360 Documents supports over 100 file types including familiar MS Office and Apple file extensions:


  • Word & text processing: .602, .abw, .cwk, .doc, .docm, .docx, .dot, .dotm, .dotx, .fb2, .fodt, .hwp, .lrf, .mw, .odm, .odt, .oth, .otp, .otm, .ott, .pages, .pdb, .rtf, .stw, .sxg, .sxw, .txt, .wpd, .wps, .wri
  • Excel & spreadsheet: .122, .csv, .dbf, .dif, .fods, .gnumeric, .numbers, .ods, .ots, .qpw, .slk, .sxc, .tsv, .wb1, .wk1, .wks, .wq1, .wq2, .xla, .xlr, .xls, .xlsb, .xlsm, .xlsx, .xltm, .xltx
  • Powerpoint & presentation: .c, .cgm, .fodp, .odp, .otp, .pot, .potm, .potx, .ppsx, .ppt, .pptm, .pptx, .sti, .sxi
  • Images & graphics .bmp, .cdr, .dxf, .emf, .fh, .fodg, .gif, .jpeg, .jpg, .odg, .otg, .p65, .pdf, .png, .pub, .std, .svg, .sxd, .tiff, .vsd, .vsdx, .vss, .wmf, .wpg


360 Documents automatically groups over 2,000 file extensions into 19 easy-to-remember categories: PDF, Image files, Text files, Excel & spreadsheets, Presentations, Outlook items & PIM, Video files, Audio files, CAD, ECAD, Bioinformatics, Medical imaging, Medical signals, Geodata, Coding, Databases, Websites, Security, Others


Software integrations


Software integrations allow organizations to connect 360 Documents to other applications:


  • Connector to MS Outlook (here) to archive emails directly from your favourite inbox
  • Connector to 360 Multibanking (here) to pay invoices directly out of the DMS and access more than 50 Swiss banks through a single login and dashboard
  • Connector to 360 Signatures (here) to sign electronically with all types of Swiss digital signatures under ZertES and eIDAS
  • Connector to 360 Scanning (here) to digitize large paper archives


360 Documents: Pricing


The cost model 360 Documents depends on the number of users (also called seats) and the expected file storage space:


SME


  • Up to 10 seats and a total of 100 GB: CHF 300 per month
  • Up to 20 seats and a total of 500 GB: CHF 600 per month
  • Up to 30 seats and a total of 1 TB: CHF 1,200 per month


Corporates and public authorities


  • Over 30 seats: CHF 700 annually per seat
  • Over 1,000 seats: CHF 600 annually per seat
  • Over 10,000 seats: CHF 500 annually per seat
  • Over 25,000 seats: CHF 400 annually per seat


360 Documents is operated, maintained and continually improved by 360core and made available exclusively via the Internet through a SaaS license.

Quick start

Ingestion: Upload, Outlook, scanner

Data acquisition

OCR technology: text recognition

Text recognition

Indexation along your folder structure

Indexation

Full-text search with results highlighting

Full-text search

Product features of 360 Documents

Business logic


  • Capture documents and associated metadata: Via simple upload, drag & drop from Outlook, bulk scanning or via API calls
  • Support of over 100 file extensions: Ingest and display documents in commonly used file formats
  • File sharing: Give internal and external access, set passwords and link expirations
  • Capture email attachments: As linked records or as a single compound record
  • Import digital records and associated metadata: Migrate directly from an external application, either in bulk or individually
  • Date of origination: When migrating, set a retention trigger predating a record's creation in 360 Documents
  • Link workflows associated with records: Annotate records, validate metadata, post "To do" entries, sign with Swiss and EU electronic signatures
  • Duplicate records: Use them in multiple business contexts (for example, in both the accounting and HR department)
  • Lifecycle management: Produce reports on records capture, usage and disposal
  • Website archiving

Usability


  • Hands-on in-app documentation in 4 languages including the foundations of records management
  • Full-text enterprise search: Advanced filtering, keyword and synonyms search in EN, DE, FR, IT
  • OCR and business data extraction: Industry-leading computer vision stack with high confidence scores
  • Data extraction at scale: Automatically detect and capture pre-existing metadata
  • Automatic document recognition: Detect over 30 document types (invoices, Swiss QR bills, IDs, tickets)
  • Business intelligence: Translate, summarize and question PDFs across all major LLMs
  • Contextual metadata service: Define and capture custom metadata
  • Metadata templates: Capture entity metadata according to one or several pre-determined templates
  • Validate custom metadata values against syntactical standards (booleans, enums, numbers, strings, URLs, phones, timestamps)
  • Classification service: Associate records and folders to their business context (for example, Accounting, HR, Sales, AML, etc.)
  • Create, manage and maintain business classes

Regulatory


  • Global compliance: ISO 15489-1:2016, ISO 16175-1:2020, DoD 5015.2-STD, MoReq2010
  • Swiss compliance: CO, GeBüV, FADP, eCH-0026, eCH-0038, eCH-0160, eCH-0164 (Swiss disposal schedules come preconfigured)
  • Disposal scheduling service: Allocate legal retention periods for records and folders, modify and replace existing disposal schedules to meet new legal or business demands
  • Retain residual metadata after record disposal: As stipulated by applicable jurisdictional standards
  • FADP compliance: Comply with Art. 25 et seq. of the Swiss Data Protection Act ("Rights of the Data Subject"), especially in terms of being able to provide information about "the retention period for the personal data"
  • Legal holding service: Pause record disposal preventing records from being disposed of during lawsuits, audits or governmental inquiries
  • Transfer records of continuing value together with their metadata to a public archive
  • Retention triggers: date of creation / origination, from last addition to folder timestamp, from folder closed timestamp, customized triggers

Security


  • User and user group service: Apply security and access restrictions on record, folder, document type and business class level ensuring that only authorized agents can access records
  • Historical user data: Trace all actions of all past users of 360 Documents
  • Model role service: Assign user roles choosing from over 200 function definitions (FND)
  • Security logging: Create and maintain access, usage and security metadata, generating event logs for each system interaction
  • Object lock: Protect records from any alteration on network level
  • Generate checksums to support integrity and duplicates detection
  • Authenticate users via 2FA before giving access
  • Perform malware detection when uploading files
  • Swiss data centers in compliance with ISO 27001 and FINMA requirements
  • 3-2-1-Backup: Regular backups offline on tape in Switzerland to prevent ransomware

Related reading


360core archiving Add-in on Microsoft AppSource (here)


Jawad Akhtar (2021) Document Management with SAP S/4HANA (here)


BDO (2021) Elektronische Buchführung und -belege aus mehrwertsteuerlicher Sicht (here)


Daniel Burgwinkel (2023) Ausblick auf die Trends in 2024 in der cloudbasierten Archivierung (here)


Alan Calder, Steve Watkins (2019) IT Governance: An International Guide to Data Security and ISO 27001/ISO 27002 (here)


Paola Ciandrini (2020) Records management. ISO 15489: Progettare sistemi documentali (here)


Jeannine Dehmelt, Marc Ph. Prinz (2024) Personaldossier: Den Datenschutz sicherstellen (here)


James Densmore (2021) Data Pipelines Pocket Reference. Moving and Processing Data for Analytics (here)

Evren Eryurek, Uri Gilad, Valliappa Lakshmanan, Anita Kibunguchy-Grant, Jessi Ashdown (2021) Data Governance: The Definitive Guide (here)


EXPERTsuisse (2014) Schweizer Handbuch der Wirtschaftsprüfung, Band "Buchführung und Rechnungslegung" (here)


FINMA (2023) Anti-Money Laundering Ordinance-FINMA (here)


FINRA (2017) Regulatory Notice 17-18. Social Media and Digital Communications. Guidance on Social Networking Websites and Business Communications (here)


FMH / Schweizerische Akademie der Medizinischen Wissenschaften - SAMW (2020) Rechtliche Grundlagen im medizinischen Alltag. Ein Leitfaden für die Praxis (here)


FMH (2023) IT-Grundschutz für Praxisärztinnen und Praxisärzte 11 Empfehlungen (here)


FMH (2023) Leitfaden für die Aufbewahrung und Archivierung (here)


FMH (2023) Standesordnung der FMH (here)


FMCH (2019) Richtlinien der FMCH für die Patienten-Aufklärung (here)


Patricia C. Franks (2025) Records and Information Management (here)


Julia Gschwend (2022) Personaldossier und Datenschutz - was Sie darüber wissen müssen (here)


IBM (2015) Using IBM Enterprise Records (here)


ISO 15489-1:2016 (2021) Information and documentation. Records management. Part 1: Concepts and principles (here)


ISO 16175-1:2020 (2020) Information and documentation - Processes and functional requirements for software for managing records - Part 1: Functional requirements and associated guidance for any applications that manage digital records (here)


ISO/TS 16175-2:2020 (2020) Information and documentation - Processes and functional requirements for software for managing records - Part 2: Guidance for selecting, designing, implementing and maintaining software for managing records (here)


ISO 19005-1:2005 (2020) ISO 19005-1:2005. Document management. Electronic document file format for long-term preservation (here)


ISO/IEC 27001:2022 (2022) Information security, cybersecurity and privacy protection. Information security management systems. Requirements (here)


Daniel E. Joudrey, Arlene G. Taylor (2017) The Organization of Information (here)


Madhusudhan Konda (2023) Elasticsearch in Action, Second Edition (here)


Microsoft (2024) Microsoft Purview risk and compliance solutions - Records management (here)


James Lappin (2024) The science of recordkeeping systems - a realist perspective (here)


Stephen Macintosh and Lynne Real (2007) DIRKS: Putting ISO 15489 to Work (here)


National Archives of Australia (2003) DIRKS - A Strategic Approach to Managing Business Information (here)


National Archives of Australia (2003) Overview of Classification Tools for Records Management (here)


Netzwoche (2023) Cloudbasierte, revisionssichere ­Archivierung auf dem Vormarsch (here)


Dieter Pfaff, Ruud Flemming (2019) Schweizer Leitfaden zum Internen Kontrollsystem (IKS) (here)


Dieter Pfaff, Stephan Glanz, Thomas Stenz, Florian Zihler (2019) Rechnungslegung nach Obligationenrecht, veb.ch Praxiskommentar mit Berücksichtigung steuerrechtlicher Vorschriften (here)


PwC Switzerland (2021) Electronic invoicing (e-invoicing). A guide for organisations and institutions (here)


PwC Switzerland (2021) Confidence in your business procedures and information Information governance. Electronic archiving (here)


Thomas Rautenstrauch (2023) Aufbewahrungsfristen: Compliance-Anforderungen an die Geschäftsunterlagen (here)


Blake Richardson (2012) Records Management For Dummies (here)


Louis Rosenfeld, Peter Morville, Jorge Arango (2015) Information Architecture (here)


William Saffady (2017) U.S. Record Retention Requirements: A Guide to 100 Commonly Encountered Records Series (here)


William Saffady (2019) Global Requirements for Personnel Records: A Survey of Laws and Regulations (here)


William Saffady (2019) Retention of Accounting Records: A Global Survey of Laws and Regulations (here)


William Saffady (2020) Managing Information Risks: Threats, Vulnerabilities, and Responses (here)


William Saffady (2021) Records and Information Management: Fundamentals of Professional Practice (here)


William Saffady (2023) Information Compliance: Fundamental Concepts and Best Practices (here)


Staatsarchiv des Kantons Zürich (2021) Informationsverwaltung und Archivierung für Gemeinden im Kanton Zürich (here)


Swiss Banking Ombudsman (Case number 2017/26) Time limits for retaining and providing bank documents (here)


Swiss Data Protection Act - FADP (2023) (here)


Swiss Federal Archives (2020) Standards für die Archivierung digitaler Unterlagen. Archivtaugliche Dateiformate (here)


Swiss Federal Archives (2025) An overview of the laws, ordinances and directives that govern the activities of the Federal Archives (here)


Swiss Federal Chancellery (2025) Elektronische Geschäftsverwaltung (GEVER) in der Bundesverwaltung (here)


Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (2025) Patient records - inspection, storage and deletion of patient data (here)


Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (2025) Different phases of the employment relationship. What data are employers allowed to use? What do they have to do? (here)


Swiss Ordinance on Business Records (2013) (here)


Swiss Ordinance on the Electronic Patient Record (2023) (here)


Swiss Value Added Tax Act (2018) (here)


SRF News (2023) Digitales Gesundheitswesen - Das elektronische Patientendossier: Was Sie wissen müssen (here)


Topsoft (2019) Compliance: GeBüV als Härtetest für die rechtskonforme Aufbewahrung digitaler Dokumente und Akten (here)


Sikander von Bhicknapahari (2021) L’obligation légale de conservation (here)


United States Department of Defense (2002) Design Criteria Standard for Electronic Records Management Software Applications (here)


Université de Fribourg (2021) Plan de classement et de gestion (here)


University of Berne (2013) Richtlinien zur Akteneinsicht und Aufbewahrungspflicht der Akten im Zusammenhang mit Leistungskontrollen bei den Fakultäten (here)


Reto Zbinden (2023) Rechtliche Anforderungen an die Archivierung (here)


Weisung des Personalamtes des Kantons Zürich (2022) Umgang mit Personaldossiers (here)


Thesauri


1. English


Brian Sheffield (2022) The Oxford Thesaurus - An A-Z Dictionary Of Synonyms (here)


Collins English Thesaurus (2019) (here)


Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Thesaurus, Second Edition (2018) (here)


2. German


Duden (2019) Das Synonymwörterbuch. 7., neu bearbeitete und erweiterte Auflage (here)


3. French


Emile Genouvrier, Claude Désirat, Tristan Hordé (2020) Dictionnaire Larousse des synonymes (here)


Le Robert (2022) Dictionnaire des synonymes, nuances et contraires (here)


4. Italian


Garzanti (2009) Dizionario dei sinonimi e contrari (here)


Michele Giocondi (2016) Grande dizionario Hoepli sinonimi e contrari della lingua italiana (here)


Maurizio Trifone (2013) Il Devoto-Oli dei sinonimi e contrari. Con analoghi, generici, inversi e gradazioni semantiche (here)


Exchange rates


Swiss Federal Office for Customs and Border Security FOCBS (2025) Daily exchange rates (here)

Introduce 360 Documents in our organization