New York City – October 12, 2026 -- Organizations in regulated industries paid an average of $94,260 in compliance penalties over the past year, with manual document processes a leading driver, according to a survey released by S-Docs, a document generation and e-Signature provider for Salesforce.
Sixty-one percent of respondents report serious disruption from documentation errors
The 2025 State of Document Workflows and Compliance Risk Report found that 61% of respondents suffered a serious disruption caused by a documentation error. Affected companies faced audits (49%), regulatory scrutiny (38%), legal exposure (33%), data leaks (33%) and financial penalties (16%) in the past year.
Legacy systems carry much of the blame. Seventy-three percent of respondents rank legacy documentation systems among the top five sources of compliance risk, and 56% name them the single biggest risk. Forty-nine percent say their current documentation platforms were not designed for regulated industries, and 54% describe document processes as one of the least mature parts of their digital transformation.
Fully automated firms all report secure systems
Of respondents with fully automated document procedures, 100% report secure systems. Across the full sample, 73% agree automation reduces compliance risk, and 77% admit errors are inevitable without it. Respondents also cite easier collaboration (69%), better visibility into document status and ownership (62%) and higher confidence in data privacy (60%).
Security and oversight concerns slow adoption
Hesitation persists. Forty-nine percent cite data security concerns, 31% fear losing manual oversight, and 29% are uncertain whether regulators will accept AI-generated documents.
"Even minor documentation errors can snowball into six and even seven-figure penalties," said Brian Stimpfl, CEO of S-Docs, citing hybrid team workflows and growing data volumes.
Missing guidance on confidentiality drives data exposure incidents
While 88% of respondents say their companies give clear guidance on which documents are confidential, 65% of those whose companies do not provide it experienced a privacy or data exposure incident as a result. Seventy-eight percent of respondents say they are personally determined to drive automation adoption in their workplace.
Survey covers 616 US managers in regulated sectors
S-Docs ran the online survey from July 9 to 18, 2025. It reflects 616 full-time employees in IT, compliance or operations roles at management level or higher in US regulated industries, at 95% confidence with a margin of error of +/- 4%.