Skip to main content

SQF Edition 10 audits start January 2027. Is your program ready? Learn more →

Food Safety Management System

The system behind the certificate

An FSMS is not a binder of documents. It is one traceable structure: the policy leadership signed, the programs that carry it, the procedures your floor follows, and the records that prove it ran. We build that structure with your team, or repair the one that grew up in pieces.

Not ready for a call? Tell us how your documents are organized today.

What it covers

Four tiers, one traceable line through them

A working FSMS lets anyone trace from the policy to a program, from the program to a procedure, and from the procedure to yesterday's record. We build each tier and the connections between them.

Audit checklist 4 / 4

Controlled master document list with numbers, statuses, owners, and review dates in Beacon

We structure the system so every document has a number, an owner, a review date, and exactly one current version. The versions people carry in their heads or on their desktops stop competing with the one that is approved.

Explore Structure and Document Control

Program documents linked to their procedures and records in Beacon

HACCP or preventive controls, prerequisite programs, supplier approval, training: written from how your facility runs, then corrected against practice. A procedure nobody follows is a finding waiting for an auditor to write it.

Explore Programs Built to Your Scheme

Training acknowledgment records tied to a controlled SOP in Beacon

Monitoring logs, checks, and verifications get recorded where they happen, with the person and the moment attached. When a customer or auditor asks for the record, it exists because the work created it.

Explore Records Where Work Happens

Management review with its input checklist and flagged gaps in Beacon

Scheduled reviews pull audit results, corrective actions, complaints, and trends into one agenda, and every gap becomes an action item with an owner. The loop from record back up to policy is what makes it a management system.

Explore Management Review
The process

From scattered documents to a system you can defend

Most facilities do not start from zero. They start from a system that grew one document at a time, written by people who have since left, in formats that no longer match. We map what exists, keep what works, and rebuild the structure around it.

Start with a system map
1

Map what exists

1-2 weeks

Inventory every program, procedure, and record against what your scheme or regulation requires. Most systems have more coverage than their owners think, in worse shape than they hope.

2

Design the structure

1 week

Set the document hierarchy, numbering, ownership, and review cycles. This is the skeleton everything else hangs on, and the part a homegrown system almost never has.

3

Write and correct the programs

3-6 weeks

Draft program and procedure documents from how the facility actually runs, then walk them with the people who do the work until the paper matches the practice.

4

Stand it up in document control

1-2 weeks

Load the system into Beacon with owners, approval routes, and review dates. The shared-drive era ends here.

5

Train and run

ongoing

The floor works from current documents and makes records where the work happens. The system starts producing its own evidence.

6

Review and improve

quarterly

Management review runs on schedule, reads the live system, and turns gaps into owned actions. The loop that keeps the system honest.

The standard

What separates a system from a stack of documents.

Auditors read structure before they read content. These are the four things they trace first.

1

One current version

Of every document

Two versions of the same SOP in circulation is not a filing problem. It is an uncontrolled process, and auditors treat it as one.

2

Paper matches practice

The floor test

An auditor reads the procedure, then watches the line. Any gap between the two becomes a finding, no matter how well either one stands alone.

3

Records made in time

Not the night before

A record created when the work happened reads differently from one reconstructed later, and experienced auditors can tell them apart.

4

A closed loop

Review that acts

Management review turns what the records show into decisions with owners. Without it, the system runs open-loop until an audit closes it for you.

Not sure your system passes all four. Tell us how your documents are organized and we'll map the gaps.

Who leads it

Our FSMS work is led by a former SQF Lead Auditor who has read hundreds of management systems from the auditor's chair and knows exactly where a structure that grew in pieces falls apart under tracing. Meet Jeff.

7,500+ audits on the bench Audit-side since 1977 1 working SQF plant
Beacon Platform

Your FSMS lives in Beacon. Not in a shared drive.

The structure we build together is the structure your team runs every day: controlled documents with role-based approvals and electronic signatures, records made on the floor, and a management review that reads the live system. See how document control works.

One controlled current version of every document
Role-based approval routes with electronic signatures
Review dates that surface before documents go stale
Records captured where the work happens
Programs linked to the procedures and records that carry them
Management review inputs pulled from the live system
Action items with owners and due dates
The full history an auditor asks to trace
Beacon document control with versions, approvals, and review dates

Plenty of consultants will write you a management system. The difference is whether it still traces top to bottom a year after the engagement ends. See why teams build it with us.

Build a management system an auditor can trace

Tell us how your system is organized today. In 20 minutes you'll know whether it traces from policy to record and which tier needs the work.

Prefer the phone? (313) 484-4887

What happens next

01

Discovery call

About your facility and goals. Not a sales pitch.

02

See it in action

A live walkthrough of Beacon scoped to your operation.

03

Custom proposal

Software, consulting, and training sized to your facility.

You'll talk with a food safety expert, not a sales rep.

20 minutes · No commitment · No pressure

Start with a system map

Tell us how your system is organized

Describe how your documents, programs, and records are structured today, shared drive and all. We come back with a read on where the structure holds, where it will not trace, and what we would fix first.

A read on whether your system traces from policy to record
The gaps an auditor would find in the first hour
No commitment. Just a conversation
FAQ

Management system questions, answered

Common questions from QA teams building or rebuilding a food safety management system.

Everything that makes food safety run as a system instead of a stack of documents: the policy your leadership signed, the programs that carry it (HACCP or preventive controls, prerequisites, supplier approval, training), the procedures people follow on the floor, and the records that prove it happened. If an auditor can trace a line from the policy down to yesterday's record, you have a management system. If they can't, you have paperwork.
No. The HACCP plan is one program inside the system. The FSMS is the structure around it: who owns each program, how documents get controlled and updated, how records get made and kept, and how management reviews the whole thing. A strong HACCP plan inside a weak system still produces audit findings. See our HACCP consulting for the plan itself.
Yes, and not only for FDA. Preventive controls under FSMA already require most of the pieces: a written plan, monitoring, corrective action, verification, and records. Customers increasingly ask for the same evidence certification would. Building the system once means the certification decision later becomes a gap check, not a rebuild.
Depends on what exists today. A facility with working programs and scattered documents is usually structured within two to three months. Starting closer to zero runs longer because programs have to be written and proven in practice, not just on paper. Either way the system goes live in stages, so document control and record-keeping start working for you in the first weeks, not at the end.
Both, deliberately. We draft structure and program documents from what your facility actually does, then your team reviews and corrects them so the procedure matches practice. A system written entirely by a consultant reads that way to an auditor, and worse, your team will not follow it. The goal is documents your people recognize as their own.
A scheduled, documented look at whether the system works: audit results, corrective actions, customer complaints, monitoring trends, resource needs. It produces decisions and action items with owners, not a meeting summary. It is also one of the first records a GFSI auditor asks for, because a system nobody reviews is a system nobody runs.
The system lives in Beacon instead of a shared drive: every document has one controlled current version with role-based approvals and electronic signatures, records are made where the work happens, and management review pulls its inputs from the live system rather than a binder assembled the night before. See how document control works.