A colleague of mine at another law firm asked if I could post this question for her.

"I've been with my law firm for 8 years.  We have not had a dedicated Archived Records system in place, as yet.  We generally box items up, type the information into an Access database and send it away to our vendor.  In an effort to save time, streamline the process and make my job easier I began entering the UPC Bar Code box number directly onto the Word document Index to File and assumed I would enter the data into the database at a later time when time lagged (right).  Our vendor keeps an inventory of the boxes coming in and out, but we have not shared the contents of the boxes with them.  Recently, we've had an Executive Director join our firm and in the interest of progress, cost and time efficiency; he wants to change our system.  He is in the process of writing a new Retention Policy for our firm.  We've had an evaluation with a Risk Management Firm.  We are moving forward in cleaning house.
Things have been going well, except now I'm being asked to dump one or more of the processes I'm comfortable with and questioned about the need for the Access Database in our office.  Our E.D. feels if we can use our vendors website to it's fullest potential, we should be able to populate all pertinent information on the vendors website; thereby relieving our firm of keeping any information on our own database.  I've asked questions of some of the other RIM professionals I've met recently through ARMA and get the definite impression this is not a good practice, but fail in conveying this information to him.  My E.D. wants me to find reference material stating why this is bad practice to store all client and business information in an off site vendors database, why we do or do not need a back up database of this information and possibly suggestions on the best practices for tracking archived materials.  We also do not have a DMS in our firm.
I would appreciate any information you might be able to share on this subject or reference material that I might obtain."

Thanks for your help!


Pilar C. McAdam, CRM
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Los Angeles, CA





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