Record Retention Compliance For Business Organisations¹

Introduction:

Record or document retention essentially deals with the maintenance and storage of documents either in electronic form or otherwise, until the completion of the document's lifecycle. Generally, record retention serves three broad purposes the first being for future reference, the second being disaster recovery, and finally, legal documentation.¹ Organisations consider record/document retention as an ordinary business practice but fail to realise that record/document retention is of legal import and could attract unintended consequences. Some laws prescribe the tenure for retention of a specific type of record/document after which they can be destroyed. This article will highlight the significance of record/document retention and recommend good retention practices for business organisations.