What is records management?

Records management is the discipline of governing an organization’s official records throughout their entire life, from creation and use through retention and eventual disposition, so the organization keeps what it must, disposes of what it should, and can prove it did both.

What it actually means

A record is any document that has ongoing value as evidence of the organization’s activities, decisions, and obligations. Records management is the set of practices that keeps those records under control across their whole lifespan rather than letting them drift.

That lifespan has stages. A record is created or received, used and referenced during its active life, retained for as long as policy or law requires, and finally either disposed of or preserved permanently. Records management governs each stage: how records are classified and filed, how long each kind is kept, when and how they are disposed of, and how access and integrity are maintained throughout.

Why it matters

Records management is what separates an organization that can answer for itself from one that cannot. When records are managed, you can find the document behind a decision, prove that a record was kept and disposed of according to policy, produce what is needed in an audit or a legal matter, and trust that important records will still exist when they are needed. When records are not managed, every one of those becomes a scramble with an uncertain outcome.

For organizations under scrutiny, universities, nonprofits, anyone accountable to donors, boards, regulators, or the public, records management is not optional housekeeping. It is how trust is maintained and demonstrated.

Records management versus document storage

The distinction from simple storage is the point. Storing documents keeps files. Managing records governs them: classifying, retaining, disposing, and controlling access according to policy, with the ability to prove it. A shared drive stores. A records management approach, embodied in an EDMS, governs.

The practices that make it real are the ones covered throughout this glossary: classification, retention schedules, legal holds, audit trails, and disposition.

Related

PaperlessZen™ brings records management to high-stakes documents through governance, retention, and audit. See governance and records retention. Related terms: EDMS, retention schedule, records disposition.