Records retention for any given record is based in its operational  
need or historical value to the company, and any fiscal, regulatory  
and legal requirements. Mixed in there is a big dose of risk management.

There is no degree requirement to make these determinations, just the  
ability to do extensive and thorough legal research. Although most  
companies will have legal, tax and audit review any recommendations.

Since laws and regulations vary state to state, and at the federal  
level, so do the requirements to keep documents. You need to  
brainstorm about why any records may be required beyond their  
immediate business need, and find any laws or regs that would apply to  
those circumstances.  And sadly, governments do not print a nice and  
easy reference volume "How Long to Keep Your Records in <name your  
state>." You have to research, dig and infer.

The basic process of determining retention is pretty straightforward:

1. Determine what records your company has (receives or generates)
2. Group those records into categories
3. Determine for each record the operational need to keep those  
records (i.e. how long are they needed to conduct business)
4. Determine any audit or accounting requirement over and above the  
line-of-business need
5. Do a risk analysis to determine when costs of maintaining the  
records outweigh the risks of getting rid of them (and vise-versa)
6. Determine which, if any, laws or regulations apply to each category  
of records, in federal laws and regulations as well as in each state  
in which your company does business. If you do business  
internationally, then you must research the laws in each country and  
province in those countries in which you do business.
7. Use all the above information to come up with a retention for each  
category that makes sense for YOUR company.
8. Then once a year or so, review the schedule to revise any retention  
that has changed because the laws, regs or operational process or need  
has changed.

While the steps are pretty simple, you can see the actual process is  
not. There are a couple of resources that can assist in getting you  
started. Do a search of the listserv archives for Zazio Retention  
Manager and Skupsky

Many companies hire specialized consultants to do the job for them.  
You cannot rely on just asking the company's legal or accounting firm  
to do it, as they don't have the required knowledge to actually  
execute the whole process.

You'll probably receive additional replies on Monday


Nolene Sherman
Records Manager since 1996. Gone wonky since 1998.
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On Sep 25, 2010, at 7:12 AM, Teresa Higginbotham wrote:

> Does Record
> Retention guidelines change from state to state? Should the person  
> in charge
> of this progran at your company have a degree or something to be the
> Records Retention person who gives the information to the company?
>

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