Life cycle records management is a term many people are not familiar with. Regardless of your familiarity with the term, if you’re creating records for your business, you are doing it. Are you doing it correctly? Are you doing it cost-effectively? There is a relatively easy way to tip the answers to those questions in your favor. Like any other task, life cycle records management requires good planning.
As a business professional, you may be an expert in servicing the bottom line or managing your customers, which doesn’t necessarily mean you’re an expert in creating, managing, and keeping records. Due to this fact, it’s crucial to find a team to guide you and software to facilitate your goal of creating a compliant records management strategy.
The Right Tool
Life cycle records management is a professional service like any other. For example, you probably use QuickBooks for accounting. You may have an accountant who takes your data from QuickBooks to compile financial reports, do your taxes, file compliance paperwork, etc. Records are no different. The moment you create a record, you should know what is going to happen to it. You may be bound by law to do so. Life cycle records management is the system that creates policies and methods for you to know exactly what the desired outcome of each record you create and maintain is.
Many professional applications serve as record management systems. Many are quite costly or complicated, but they are not capable of managing the record from origination to termination. They tend to come in somewhere in the middle and often tend to leave you with more questions than answers if you don’t employ specialized professionals. Because you need an end-to-end solution, it’s vital to pick the right tool for the job.
File Label Express
File Label Express is different. File Label Express starts by creating a standard file label to help you properly organize files in your system. As it establishes that label, it also captures the file’s metadata. The result is a clean, crisp, and highly legible file label with a database of each record, which allows you to determine:
- What is the retention policy of the record?
- How do you apply the retention policy as you create the record?
- Where is the record, and who has it?
- Where has the record been for audit compliance?
- When should you scan a particular record (or group of records)?
There is no better time to capture efficiency and compliance than when you create the record. At the same time, you are cutting costs and reducing the time to originate records, you are imposing standards that will protect your interests throughout the life cycle of those records.