Records Retention Guidelines – Reasons Why Every Business Should Have Them in Place

By law, very few companies are required to maintain their business records for more thanks or seven years. Still some organizations insist on keeping them for years. Do your business policies sound similar?

In whatever organization you work, we need record retention policies to make our work easier by referring to the past transactions. And usually, all businesses actually need to keep some records for the extended haul. But, with new technologies this task is finally becoming easier as documents are now stored digitally instead of physically, saving on physical space, time, efforts and money. At this time we can actually turn our archiving rooms in to a serviceable office for at least two employees.

Record retention schedules and policies and meant to dictate the necessity of saving each business documents and transaction proof and creating a logical system that decides which record needs to be retained and which should be discarded. The retention duration depends upon the relevant laws, best industry practices and specific business and staff requirements. Another area you may consider for having a record retention guideline is for employee email boxes. If their communications are not extremely well organized, how can they easily locate information they are trying to retrieve? Wouldn’t they be better off storing this email in the customer’s electronic folder? Should they have a company recommended system of email account management? Take time to consider these things.

Don't forget the objective of maintaining information and enabling it to be retrieved on a later date. In your shared drive, exactly how old are your documents, and are you facing difficulties in finding the current files that are needed for projects or assignments through the piles upon piles of archives? Do you clean up these files on a regular schedule? These aspects can be managed through a record retention policy template.

Some records, as we know, have to be kept for pre-determined period of time like your HR records and financial documents. Some records are even required to be preserved for as long as the business exists! But, some records have been in your files for years and the time has come to discard them. These are the aspects that are dealt with by business records retention schedule and template.

Implementing a good file retention system, better archiving system and installing record retention guidelines will increase office efficiency that will be evident in improved customer service and increased profits. I would suggest a few points before you create your retention policies. Firstly, be specific to check with the legal requirements pertaining to your business. Second, think of hiring a Professional Organizer. And that Professional Organizer can work with the management to set up retention policies and document management systems as well as supervise the implementation with staff members. It is a onetime exercise – formulating the right policies and implementing procedures. But the efforts you put in here will show up as increased efficiencies in your day-to-day operations.

To know more about business document retention schedule, visit Irch.com.

About The Author

Sarah Jones is an expert on business data management and records maintenance who also likes to write many interesting articles and blogs, helping enterprises in coming up with the best business record retention schedule and document preservation guidelines. She recommends IRCH.com as the best source of information on the subject.

IRCH provides market-leading products and services enabling customers to reduce costs and risks through implementing legally-defensible records retention and destruction practices.