What Is a Record?

This page provides a brief viewpoint on what a record is as opposed to a document.

Regardless of its physical manifestation, a record represents evidence of or information about a decision, transaction, process or other activity/function. It is a permanent asset - or fixed content - that is subject to rules for compliance, retention, access control, appraisal and disposition (whether this is destruction/deletion or permanent preservation). Typically a record will be "declared" as such.

Records might include books, papers, maps, photographs, tapes, films, recordings; digital, paper and microform documents.

A record can include more than one actual document, where together they constitute the evidence. A document becomes a record when it is placed in an organized filing system for use as evidence or information. Preserving a record's contextual relationship to a larger group of documents is a key difference between records management and document management, which typically focuses on the management of an individual content object and meeting the operational requirements for using business information.

Please also see the page on Audit Trails.

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