Documents and AI
Documents that carry no date
They arrive with no date, or with three different ones. What gets recorded there drives every expiry that follows.
A certificate with no date, a signed sheet with the date in small print, a document carrying three different dates on one page. It is more common than it sounds, and the decision made at that moment does not stay there: it drags along every alert that depends on it.
The dates you may find, and which is which
| Date | What it means | When it is the right one |
|---|---|---|
| Issue | When the signatory produced it | Nearly always: it is what the period counts from |
| Validity or expiry | How long it holds good | If present, it overrides the rest |
| Signature | When someone signed it | It can be later than issue |
| Received | When it reached you | It never replaces the others |
Important
The last row is the shortcut that wrecks the arithmetic: **recording the date you received it as if it were the document's shifts every expiry forward**. A certificate issued in January arriving in April will warn you three months late for the rest of its life — with nothing to give it away, because the record is consistent with itself. If the document carries no date, the answer is not today's date: it is to ask.
What to do when it is missing
- 1
Read the whole document before deciding
It is usually in the footer, the stamp or beside the signature.
- 2
If it genuinely is not there, ask the issuer
An email from them stating the date works, and it gets filed.
- 3
And if it cannot be obtained, record that
«No date on the document» is information; an invented date is not.
- 4
With a cautious expiry meanwhile
Short: better to review too often than to trust a date that does not exist.
Watch out
Watch out for documents carrying two dates months apart: **issue and signature do not always match, and sometimes the gap is deliberate**. A report dated March and signed in June may be perfectly correct — drafted then, validated later — or may show someone signed late. Either way, keep both and know which one you count the period from, because whoever reviews it will ask about exactly that gap.
When what is missing is the expiry
Worth knowing
How long a document without an explicit expiry stays valid depends on the document type and on whoever requires it from you. **Your adviser or the client settles that**; here it is about not inventing a date nobody can later trace.
›Can I use the date of the email it came with?
As a reference yes, recorded as such. As the document's date, no.
›What if the date is in another format or language?
Check it the first time: that is where day and month get swapped most.
›Is it worth rejecting a document with no date?
If the deadline matters, yes: asking properly is cheaper than dragging it.
A real case
The situation
A company records the received date as the date of a certificate issued three months earlier.
What you do
- Asks the issuer for the real date and records it, noting that it was missing
What you get
The renewal alert lands when it should instead of three months late forever.
The situation
The document carries no date and the warning does not work.
What you do
- Records the known date when filing it
What you get
The warning works again.
The situation
The upload date is assumed to be the document's date.
What you do
- Distinguishes the two and notes which is which
What you get
The history is true.
The situation
Nobody knows from when an undated document is valid.
What you do
- Asks the issuer to include it
What you get
The problem is solved at source.
The situation
The date is estimated and nobody knows it is an estimate.
What you do
- Flags the figure as estimated
What you get
The estimated is told from the certain.
The situation
A client asks about validity and there is no figure.
What you do
- Checks what was recorded and explains it
What you get
The answer is honest and useful.
This article answers
- the document has no date
- what date to record if the certificate has none
- issue date or received date
- the document has several dates