Records Management and the Life Cycle of a Record

What is a Record?

The information that your business produces is one of the most important assets to your organization.
Business information can take many forms, from Emails and Microfilm to Computer disks and traditional paper documents. A record is considered to be any medium of information that is conducive to the progress and smooth running of your business.   

Records management and the life cycle of a Record

Records management is the process of maintaining and controlling all of the steps involved in the life of a Record. It's vital that your business manages all of its Records efficiently and competently. Our experienced team at PHS Recordsmanagement can support and assist you throughout each of stages in the life of your business records, whilst keeping the costs of secure storage to a minimum.  

There are 4 stages in the life of a Record:

1) Record Creation and Organization
When a Record is created, the process of organizing its future needs to be planned. PHS Recordsmanagement can assist you in forming and organizing an index of all the Records within your business. We can support you throughout the process of indexing your company information, and in turn, this will enable you to understand the types of records that you have, distinguish the information that needs to be kept, and help you decide which records can be destroyed - immediately or in due course when they reach the correct time frame.

2) Active Management
The activity involved in the management of your records will depend on the type of record itself, and its intended use for your business. Many of your Active records will need to be accessed frequently. PHS Recordsmanagment has the
dexterity access the Active records that you require accurately, quickly and efficiently.

3) Inactive Management
Legalities and legislation means that many of the records within your business will require storage for several years. These are considered ‘Inactive records’ Although it may be years before you need to call them up, PHS Recordsmanagment has the facility to store inactive records for many years, and should you ever need to access your Inactive records, we can pull  them out of  deep storage and have them with your business within 24 hours of your request.   

4) Disposition
Disposition is the process of destroying old records and thus, the end of the Record life cycle. You can trust that PHS Recordsmanagement can destroy all your outdated and unwanted records safely and securely providing a detailed Destruction Certificate which details items destroyed ensuring you are applying a full ‘Duty of Care’ for your business.