Records Management is important for any business or organization. RM manages data and information of an organization, throughout its lifecycle. RMS is more closely associated with compliance, governance, and risk policies.
2. What is a record?
We deal with records everywhere in our
daily life. A shopping receipt, school report
card or doctors prescriptions and many
more all is a record.
Record can be defined as information
created, received or sent in the process of a
routine transaction being made by an
organization. A record can be a piece of
information in digital, printed or any other
form.
For various reasons organizations keep
information documented in form of
records.
Some examples are:
Emails
Reports
Text messages
Faxes
Photographs
Maps and plans
Samples and objects
Letters
Spreadsheets
Research data
Databases
Minutes
Social media sites
Information in business systems
Policy and briefing papers
4. Records Classification
Records classification assist in various functions from creation to destruction of records.
The highest level of classification is physical or electronic records.
Physical records that can be touched and which take up physical space, such as paper.
Electronic records, are generated with and used by information technology devices called
electronic or digital records.
5. Another classification of records based on functions, or grouping of records according to
various traits:
Enterprise records, revolve around the day-to-day operations of an enterprise and cover areas
areas such as but not limited litigation, employee management, consultant or contractor
management, customer engagements, purchases, sales, and contracts. These are common to
most enterprises, regardless of their function, purpose, or sector.
Industry records are specific to industry type. Examples are medical industry records (e.g., the
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), pharmaceutical industry records, and food
industry records.
Legal hold records are mandated, usually by legal counsel or compliance personnel, to be held
held for a period of time, either by a government or by an enterprise. The purposes of
addressing potential issues associated with compliance audits and litigation. Such records are
assigned Legal Hold traits that are in addition to classifications which are as a result of
enterprise or industry classifications.
6. What is Records Management?
Records management, or sometimes called records information management (RIM), is
an essential part of any organization. Record management supervises, administers
information created, received, maintained, stored and disposed of, in any form of
medium or format. In other words RM manages data and information of an organization,
throughout its lifecycle. Companies and organizations make and follow approved
process and policies to successfully manage the record management.
9. RMS and DMS terms are confused with each other because they solve similar
reasons. Let’s see how they differ from each other.
The reasons companies implement DMS is to reduce paper and track, manage
and store documents. Mostly these systems have features like record tracking
that saves all versions of a document and notes (including when, why, and by
whom the document(s) were changed).
RMS is more closely associated with compliance, governance, and risk policies. A
typical RMS software solution supports identifying, classifying, storing, securing,
retrieving, tracking, and destroying business records. An RMS often works with
only structured data. There are specific compliance requirements for records
regarding how they’re saved, how they’re accessed, and how they’re destroyed.
Records Management System (RMS)
Vs.
Document Management System (DMS)
10. Why Records Management is important
for Businesses?
Reduces records volume and storage costs
Businesses retrieve records effectively
Enables legal and regulatory compliance
Reduce litigation risk
Enables business continuity in any disastrous situation
RM allows to automate workflow
For any Business or Professional, it is essential to manage their records. Having a
good record management system helps in maintaining the costs, the legal
purposes, the regulatory purposes, the tax related issues, or it can be to
manage and improve business. It is vital to effectively collect, store and analyze
data to use the information effectively.
11. Thus, the importance of Records Management is the ability to fully control and
administer the records of your organization. By allowing records to flow within
your organization, vital information can be accessed. By limiting access to
information records are kept secure. Compliance and risk mitigation are also
increased.
In short, Records Management can help your organization be more
productive, more secure and can even help you reduce operational costs.
12. References
“University of Northern British Columbia.” Why Is Records Management Important? | University
of Northern British Columbia, www.unbc.ca/records-management/why-records-management-
important.
“Records Management 101: Why Is It Important?: Vital Records Control.” Records Management
101 Why Is It Important Comments, 5 Apr. 2019, vitalrecordscontrol.com/records-management-
why-is-it-important/.
Chen, Yu. “Enterprise Information Management Systems: ECM, DAM, CMS, DMS, and RMS
Solutions-A Guide and Checkli.” TEC, 7 Jan. 2019,
www3.technologyevaluation.com/research/article/enterprise-information-management-
systems-ecm-dam-cms-dms-and-rms-solutions-a-guide-and-checklist.html.
“What's the Difference Between DMS and RMS?” EFileCabinet, 13 Apr. 2018,
www.efilecabinet.com/whats-the-difference-between-dms-and-rms/.
Montana, Rikki. “Records Management.” Welcome to the Open Gov Guide, 11 July 2019,
www.opengovguide.com/topics/records-management/.
