Spring Is In The Air!

But put down that broom and check out our guide before throwing everything out!

Everywhere you look, the sights and sounds of the season are in the air: the days are warmer; baseball is back; and it seems everyone is cheerfully whistling a tune as they eagerly tackle their long overdue Spring Cleaning projects.

But just as quickly as you can sing "Heigh Ho!", throwing all our your ‘old’ documents at the office can have some serious repercussions.

Every single company record has various ‘retention’ timeframes, or periods that they need to be kept. And to make things more confusing, the retention time frames vary between federal and state regulations. For example, the Americans with Disabilities Act, requires personnel and employment records to be kept at least one year. But the Immigration Reform and Control Act requires an employee’s I-9 Form to be retained at least three years from the date of hire or one year after termination.

The penalties for not adhering to such rules can be grave. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 required companies to set up internal controls that prevent questionable accounting procedures. And it states that company representatives can be held criminally liable, with fines or even prison time for the most egregious violations.

Even an innocent mistake or misunderstanding by a company employee of the retention policy could have consequences. If a litigation hold is in place and an employee inadvertently destroys documents, sanctions can arise for spoliation of evidence. And even if there is no litigation at the time of destruction, there is no guarantee that the data that had been destroyed may be required during a trial several years later – leading to possible sanctions or even altering the court’s view of your case.

It is vital to have a written policy in place, covering the following general points:

•    The current law as it applies to the state(s) in which you do business
•    How you will ensure that saved documents, in both paper and electronic form, are easily retrievable
•    Approved methods for destroying obsolete documents in a secure manner
•    Making administrative staff aware of your record retention policy
•    Assigning one individual to administer the policy
•    An audit tracking system to ensure compliance

DocuTech offers many records management services, from comprehensive Records Retention consulting to the innovative RIM on Demand service. Visit www.DocuTechOnline.com for more information.