9 Document Retention Policy Best Practices

Do you know how long your organization stores documents and email communications? If not, it’s time to implement a comprehensive document retention policy. This guide shows you how to follow document retention policy best practices online and offline.

Why Follow Document Retention Policy Best Practices?

Company data is valuable, but it can also be a risk. On one hand, records help you perform risk assessments, evaluate employees, and find ways to improve productivity. You also need specific documents to comply with legal and governmental requirements. On the other hand, storing too many records and storing some records for too long can introduce security vulnerabilities.

What Makes a Good Document Retention Policy?

A good document retention policy revolves around several key goals:

• Protecting your most important business records: 
• Meeting regulatory requirements:
• Strengthening your network defenses by retaining security logs
• Minimizing data security risks
• Avoiding confusion

Achieving these objectives requires balancing records creation and data deletion. Taking an overly aggressive or overly lenient approach can be detrimental.

What Are the Best Practices for a Document Retention Policy?

Above all, a successful data retention policy should fit your organization’s unique needs. Take the time to create a customized policy, not a template form.

1. Conduct an In-Depth Data Audit

Create a complete picture of all the documents, records, and data in your company’s possession. Accuracy and thoroughness are critical in this audit to ensure an effective document retention policy that addresses all potential risks and requirements:

• Contracts: Employee contracts, vendor agreements, and client contracts
• Communications: Emails, chat logs, voice messages, meeting transcripts, and copies of videoconferences
• Financial documents:Tax returns, loan records, banking information, etc.
• CRM data: Invoices, sales data, purchase orders, customer service records, etc.
• Organizational data: Manufacturing records, internal audits, reports, and logs
• Sensitive information:Trade secrets, confidential product data, billing info, controlled unclassified information, etc.

Include physical and digital records in the list. Segment data into categories for easier management, such as legal, compliance, and accounting. Creating a comprehensive list of data points takes time, but you can only manage documents that you’re aware of.

2. Identify Your Regulatory Scope

To avoid fines and vulnerabilities, keep regulatory frameworks in mind when creating your document retention policy. Compliance should be integrated from the very beginning instead of being added as an afterthought.

For each document, make a note of retention requirements for compliance, such as:

• Federal tax returns: Keep for at least three years, preferably seven years
• Payroll records:Keep at least three years
• OSHA accident forms:Retain for five years after an accident
• Patient documents for HIPAA: Store for six years from creation or last use in case patients request them
• Payment card information for PCI DSS: Only store cardholder data when absolutely necessary and only in encrypted form
• Sales records for publicly traded companies: To comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, retain sales records and invoices for five years

Both storing records for too long and deleting records arbitrarily can get your business into trouble.

3. Create a Clear Document Retention Policy

Put your document retention policy in writing. Be thorough and specific with retention or deletion procedures for all documents, including internal and client emails.

Your policy should explain:

• Who is in charge of maintaining, storing, backing up, or deleting the information
• What the document or data includes
• Where your organization will store physical and/or digital versions of the files
• How long you will keep the data
• How you plan on using, transferring, or disposing of the data
• Why you need the document

Outline penalties for non-compliance, like what happens if employees don’t create the required records.

4. Stay Up to Date With Organizational and Regulatory Changes

Cybersecurity frameworks, industry standards, state laws, and federal regulations often change over time. Periodically review your document retention policy to make sure it complies with the latest requirements. For example, SOC 2 Type II audits require you to gather evidence and compliance reports for up to 12 months.

Planning on expanding in European markets? Carefully research GDPR standards for data retention. There are restrictions — and significant fines — related to where you can transfer or store data on EU citizens.

5. Review Your Policy With Network Security Professionals

Review each point of your proposed document retention policy with IT, GRC, or cybersecurity professionals to ensure the policy effectively mitigates cybersecurity risks and complies with relevant regulations. The way you handle sensitive records can directly affect your vulnerability to ransomware, phishing attacks, and disasters. 

6. Delete Redundant or Remote Documents

Between physical file cabinets, company servers, and employee devices, you can end up with many copies. This issue creates confusion and adds risk.

Your data retention policy should include restrictions on accessing documents on personal devices. If you allow it, include legal provisions that give you the right to remotely wipe private devices used for work tasks in case of theft or termination.

7. Automate Records Creation and Deletion

Following document retention policy best practice is much easier with a SaaS platform. Software solutions allow you to create automated workflows that fit specific regulatory and industry frameworks.

Generate reports automatically and forward them to predetermined storage locations, saving time and reducing the chance of employee error. Set up auto-delete settings for emails and shared network folders.

8. Accept Employee Feedback But Be Firm

Some departments may want longer document retention periods for efficiency reasons. A good policy should be flexible enough to accommodate valid needs, but it should not allow document hoarding. Outdated records are a liability in many ways.

9. Follow Data Loss Prevention Best Practices

Document retention and data loss prevention have a lot of overlap. DLP best practices help you reduce vulnerabilities:

• Continuously monitoring user activity and records access
• Creating using credentials for each user and limiting permissions
• Using advanced access control measures, such as MFA
• Automatically blocking employees from downloading or emailing sensitive documents
• Implementing endpoint device security

Document retention violations often happen because of human error, so your policy needs to anticipate risks and outline mitigation strategies.

How Can You Implement Document Retention Policy Best Practices for Your Entire Organization?

Compyl gives you exceptional control over document and data workflows. As a centralized platform, it helps you visualize records and users, making it easier to adhere to regulatory and cybersecurity frameworks. Compliance tracking features reveal areas where you need to follow document retention policy best practices more closely. Learn more about this powerful tool for enterprises and start improving your retention policies.