How do I close a report and what do I record?

Closing means: informing the reporter and documenting the file

A report is closed by informing the reporter within the applicable deadline about what has happened with their report, and by documenting those steps in a file. In the Netherlands and Germany, the same deadline applies: three months after sending the acknowledgement of receipt, not after the report itself. The information the reporter receives at that time concerns the progress and outcome of the assessment — not a substantive assessment by the platform, because that assessment is the responsibility of the employer itself.

What is documented is in practice more than just the final message to the reporter. A file typically contains: the date of receipt, the date and content of the acknowledgement of receipt, the steps the handler has taken, and the date and content of the feedback on the assessment. For a report that can be tracked via a case code, it should also be documented when and how the reporter was contacted or responded. Anonymity and confidentiality of the reporter's identity remain the starting point: what is documented serves the file, not the identification of the reporter to third parties.

Where this follows from: Article 18 of the Directive and Article 2 WPA

Article 18 of Directive (EU) 2019/1937 requires maintaining records on each received report. Article 2 of the Whistleblower Protection Act elaborates this into an internal reporting procedure, including the deadline for acknowledgement of receipt (section h) and the deadline for information on the assessment (section i). Both provisions together provide the two building blocks of a closure: timely feedback to the reporter, and a documented file showing that this feedback actually took place.