What is a Document Retention Policy? Why a Documentation Policy is needed?

A document retention policy is a document management tool that helps you keep track of records and documents. It's important to have this policy in place because it helps you maintain an organized, efficient, and effective organization. In addition to being useful for long-term storage and retrieval, a good electronic record keeping system also allows you to capture information from paper files as well as from digital sources (such as emails).

A well-written documentation policy can help ensure employee productivity by making sure people don't forget anything important at work; it also helps reduce errors due to lost files or misfiled paperwork. Additionally, proper documentation retention can reduce the risk of lawsuits by providing proof that your business practices are correct—and thus reducing liability if something goes wrong later on down the road!

Why a Documentation Policy is Needed?

A document retention policy helps your organization to maintain the relevant documents and keep the organization safe. Documents are important for legal reasons, financial reasons, regulatory reasons, and business continuity purposes.

In some cases, you will need a good documentation policy in place so that you can retain all of your business records for future use or audit needs. Document Retention Policies can help prevent the loss or destruction of data by ensuring that necessary information is maintained securely until needed by legal representatives or third parties as part of an investigation into a breach or other incident involving alleged corporate wrongdoing (e.g., fraud).

When Should You Implement a Document Retention Policy?

A document retention policy is a good idea if you're about to embark on any of the following:

• Start a new project or business change. Your company has just outgrown its current office space, and it's time to move into an updated facility. Or maybe there's been an acquisition of some sort and now your organization will be working in another building altogether. Whatever the case may be, having documentation of past projects stored somewhere won't hurt your chances at success—but it will help ensure that nothing gets lost along the way!

• Borrow money from banks/investors (e.g., angel investors). When applying for loans from banks or investors like venture capitalists (VCs), having records of past deals will win points with potential lenders because they can see how well you've done previously; this shows confidence in future performance as well as credibility when presenting them with proposals for new projects at future meetings where possible funding opportunities arise."

How to Develop a Document Retention Policy?

A record is any information that can be used to prove or disprove a fact. The best example of this is the existence of a document, which may contain information about an event or transaction and be used for legal purposes. For example, if you were involved in an accident at work and needed to prove who was driving your vehicle when it crashed into another car, you would have access to all the necessary documents from your insurance company (e.g., police report). If they were not kept properly by someone else at work or elsewhere, then they could not be used as evidence after an accident occurred.

Why Is Documentation Important?

Documentation allows organizations to comply with regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act (HIPAA), Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA). Without proper documentation practices in place across departments within organizations like yours then there will always be risk associated with these laws no matter how well put together those processes are because once something goes wrong there'll always be questions about what happened beforehand leading back up through history until eventually landing back where we started from."

How Can Document Management Software Help with Your Business' Document Retention Policy?

A document management system can help you to manage your documents. You can use it to find, retrieve, and store them. It will also help you organize them so that they are easy for employees to find when needed.

You need a document retention policy because:

• It's important for your business' image and reputation that all the information in its possession is kept secure from unauthorized access by employees or third parties (such as competitors).

• Some information is relevant only under certain circumstances—for example, when an employee needs access to something regarding their job duties (e-mails), but not any other time during working hours; or perhaps only after hours of physical presence at an office location where confidential records are kept away from prying eyes such as those belonging to competitors who might want some advantage over other companies

A document retention policy helps your organization to maintain the relevant documents and keep the organization safe.

The benefits of having a document retention policy include:

• Maintaining records of business transactions, including client and employee information, financial records, work product and other sensitive information that you may want to keep confidential or private.

• Preventing loss or damage of sensitive data due to obsolete files being archived or discarded without proper disposal procedures in place.

• Ensuring compliance with legal requirements such as evidence-based audits from regulatory agencies such as The National Archives Administration Office of Records Management (NARA) which requires companies must maintain certain types of records for at least five years following their creation date when requested by NARA officials during an audit process conducted by them; otherwise penalties could be imposed on those organizations who fail this requirement.