Records Management

 

The records management procedure has a few basic points:

• Determining the type of information that is to be considered as records
• Handling of the documents that will become records
• How those documents should be collected once they become records
• How and how long should a certain record be held in order to meet the required business, legal and regulatory standards
• And in the end, disposal of expired records or eventual location, protection and archiving of those records. Archiving is done for important documents that can be used in the future as a reference or in external events like lawsuits.

The first point is determining which documents are to be considered as records. This is the responsibility of records managers and lawyers. Careful categorization of those documents will ensure that the proper documents are held for a needed amount of time. A good and neatly designed records management  system will help the organization legally. It will also help that organization to demonstrate the following of mandatory obligations, and in the end it will increase the efficiency of the organization by disposing and destroying of the documents that are not needed and not considered as records.

Path of Records Management

Companies that are in a need of this kind of a system should have a file plan that will organize all the records with their existing retentive schedule by hierarchy. To turn a certain document into a record, you must first acknowledge it as a record and then classify it by putting it into the file plan.

When that document turns into a record, it will go through a “life cycle” that has one or several phases. Throughout the life cycle, period of how long the records are being held in a certain phase is determined and controlled by a retention rule. When the records life cycle ends, the record will be destroyed or archived. There are a few ways to dispose a record such as accession, destroy and review. When it comes to disposition, it usually doesn’t happen automatically. It has to go through a process called records scheduling.

To understand what has just been said, here are the explanations of the terms used which are necessary for records management:

• File plan is used to classify the records. Usually storage is made where records are placed in hierarchical order, either by years or alphabet. File plan may also be used for security purposes and according to the security rules the records may be placed separately from the rest of the records.
• Declaration and classification go hand in hand with each other. Declaration is used to pronounce a certain document as a record and classification is used to file that record in a certain place of the file plan.
• Life Cycle of a record is the time from declaring a document to be a record to the time it is destroyed. There may be one or several phases in a records life cycle. Retention schedule is used to determine how long a certain record will stay in a phase and how long it will take to pass on to the next phase. The last step in records management is disposition. Disposition can be performed in three different ways: Accession, Destroy and Review
• Accession involves deleting the records from a database. Before the deletion however, the records are transferred to some other authority that from there on takes the ownership and responsibility for the records.
• Destroy is self explanatory, the records are destroyed permanently. Physical records are burned or shredded and electronic records are overwritten.
• Review is a process where the staff members review the document that has expired and eventually prolong the lifespan of the record.
• Discovery of records is a special process where usually court orders the search through the records and finds the records that match the discovery and hold order.
• Hold is a process where the records are legally protected and cannot be destroyed like they would be once their life cycle expires.

Importance of Records Management

The importance of records management should be clear by now. Records management is used to achieve efficient, transparent and accountable governance. The proper use of records management will help you access the required information more easily since all the records will be easily accessible. The proper flow of information makes it easier for a company to work efficiently. Simple removing of a duplicate document will speed up the work and efficiency. And in the end, destroying of the documents allows the use of only needed records and prevents theft and damage to important records.

Records management has a great purpose and importance for any company or organization and by knowing all of its important aspects you will be able to make the best out of it.