Filling Documents, to save time can we put a dash instead of N/A?

Hello, I have a strange question. I'm working in a food factory and we running BRC last 9 months. Now between Production/Packing and Technical departments, there is always some confrontation. Supervisors asking, when they filling documents (cleaning records, attendance etc.) can they put a dash (-) instead N/A? Technical says, that to put N/A it is BRC requirement and they can't put dash instead. Supervisors not happy, because writing N/A in all documents during the day is slowing down the work. They prefer to put a dash (-). Can we use dash -, instead of N/A? Thank you for your answers.

Yes, but you are going to have to explain what the dash means.

Theoretically you can use whatever notations you want BUT you'll have to explain them in procedure and policy and train everyone with record keeping responsibilities on them as well as raise NCs if someone uses a N/A after the change. also, we're literally talking a fraction of a second difference here between a dash and an N/A. I suppose you could define a dash in your procedure as equivalent to an N/A and accept both? Seems it would be confusing though.

As above, you could create a key for the form and get the supervisor/s to sign with any of the acceptable responses in the key. More importantly though, if there are so many "N/A" in your forms, perhaps you should review the forms themselves and remove items that are consistently creating these issues.