Records Management Professionals: How to Store Certs of Destruction?

July 12, 2018 3:56 PM

I’m working on some document destruction issues, and I'm having trouble figuring out how to document the destruction of old files (once they've aged out of the system and we've fully destroyed them). Like, I have the certificate, how do I set up and organize their storage?

I’ll mostly need to retrieve certification of the destruction of a particular client file, which are assigned client numbers in their active lives (this will happen very infrequently), and I’m not sure how to organize the file so as to be able to locate that info quickly. I think I'm missing some kind of term of art, because everything I'm finding when I’m searching ARMA’s resources is about how to determine when and how to destroy a file (the part of the process I’m totally set with), not how to properly document it.

posted by Tentacle of Trust to Work & Money (2 answers total)

Best answer: What you’re looking for is a disposal register. You need to document decisions made in line with your retention schedule and link to the certification. The register should list:

- the records type destroyed
- a description of the records
- the retention type applied
- the date range of the records destroyed
- the destruction method used
- the name and role of the person authorising destruction
- the date of destruction
- a link to the certificate of destruction
In your case you should use the unique numbers as an additional field to identify each destruction certificate.

Hope this helps.
posted by BAKERSFIELD! at 11:20 PM on July 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks! "Disposal Register" was what I needed. I was able to find a template, and finalize my policy. Now for the real fun: destroying records!
posted by Tentacle of Trust at 4:44 PM on July 13, 2018 [1 favorite]