Record retention what is a record

Certain types of records have to be retained-sometimes for years past their useful life. This article helps define what a Records Retention program is, and details all the different retention times for dozens of records for your company. Record Nations has been providing document management solutions for over a decade.

Let us help you find the right document storage solution for your business. To get started , fill out the form to the right, or give us a call at A records retention program provides for the systematic review, retention and destruction of documents received or created in the course of business.

A records retention program will identify documents and business records that need to be maintained and contain guidelines for how long certain documents should be kept and how they should be destroyed. A record retention program is important for many reasons. A records retention program can protect you in litigation and help ensure compliance with federal and state laws and regulations. Evidence of a clear and consistently enforced records retention program, enacted for valid purposes, will go a long way to convince the court that the destruction of a document or business records was reasonable.

While it is important to clear out clutter, tossing the wrong paper or deleting an important e-mail can also have bad consequences. Here is a simplified example of a retention schedule for a higher education institution, which includes the codes, document types, retention periods and mediums of the records in question.

Records retention policies govern the classification, storage, preservation and destruction of all records in an organization. These policies help to ensure that important records are not mishandled, and that temporary records are discarded promptly in an effort to reduce risk and keep the records management system clean, coordinated and secure.

Powerful records management systems enable organizations to monitor records throughout their lifecycle, specifying when a record was originally filed and when it will be eligible for destruction. Records are only as good as they are accessible. The records your organization maintains should be easy to search, retrieve and update at all times.

Whether preparing for an audit, accessing client information, or making changes to important documents, having a centralized, organized, digital records management system in place ensures that your retention schedule and policies are easily and consistently followed.

These are stored either off-site in a warehouse or on site but reduced to microfilm in order to save space. Maintaining such archives requires a fair amount of discipline. Ideally records are stored in neatly labeled file cabinets and care is exercised in removing records for reference and putting them back again. Discipline is needed because nothing seems quite so dead as the fairly deep past, and when a looking at these records most of us have trouble imagining these records ever being "needed.

Record retention is akin to insurance. It's a nuisance until you need it. The archiving of electronic records is a special category that requires attention. Most companies back up electronic records but do so on media disks or tapes that are periodically reused. The reuse of storage media means that the "far" past is often erased covered over by data from the "near" past. In the evolving record-retention climate brought about by Sarbanes-Oxley, itself the creature of corporate scandals, companies need to review their electronic data retention practices.

Certain types of backups, thus, may have to be set aside as archives, the disks or tapes not reused. These media need to be held for archival purposes rather than to repair computer crashes.

Federal income tax returns, annual financial statements, general ledgers, fixed asset records, and corporate documents charter, bylaws, stock records, patent and trademark applications, labor contracts, pension records, etc. They tend to be looked at and in part purged only when the business changes hands. Regular business documents that support financial statements and tax payments—such as canceled checks, payroll checks, bank statements, invoices, purchase orders, and personnel records—should be retained for at least six years.

These time periods allow for a margin of safety in meeting the IRS rules, which also address the means that may be used in retaining records. The guidelines specify that the taxpayer must be able to establish on the basis of a documentary trail the amounts associated with income, costs, credits, and other relevant factors that relate to tax liability.

These records can take the form of paper files or computerized data. This complete guide covers records retention definition, schedule, policy, and its importance to organizations. Records retention refers to methods and practices organizations use to maintain the important information for a required period of time for administrative, financial, legal, and historical purposes.

It applies to paper documents as well as the retention of electronic records such as word documents, spreadsheets, scanned papers, videos. A record is considered as evidence of certain events that took place within an organization such as purchase order, contract approval, or correspondence. The duration of time retention period specifies how long records should be retained before they are destroyed. Organizations usually define the business document retention period based on multiple factors such as the nature of the business documents, industry regulations, or business needs.

Other information is defined by laws and regulations. In the United States, for example, certain financial and tax records must be stored for seven years due to IRS regulations. This could change if the industry has certain laws or if you need to keep them for a longer period of time. The business document retention period is usually declared via well-defined policies and schedules. Businesses need to have a well-established and routinely updated retention schedule to ensure that information is retained as long as it is operationally and legally needed and other information is disposed of systematically based on disposal schedule of records.

Check out this fully detailed article covering the difference between document management and records management. The retention schedule, also called data retention schedule, is the core foundation of an effective records management initiative. The purpose is to define how different types of records are managed.