Document Retention Audit Checklist

When to use this

Annual housekeeping that prevents a slow accumulation of records nobody wants but nobody can throw away. Requires legal sign-off on destructions for regulated industries.

# Document Retention Audit Checklist

## Setup
- [ ] Current retention policy to hand
- [ ] Legal / compliance sign-off on the audit cycle
- [ ] Inventory of physical storage locations
- [ ] Inventory of digital storage locations (drives, mailboxes, archived systems)

## Categories of records to assess
- [ ] HR files (personnel, payroll, leave)
- [ ] Finance (invoices, tax records, contracts)
- [ ] Legal (contracts, NDAs, regulatory submissions)
- [ ] Board (minutes, papers, resolutions)
- [ ] Customer / client records
- [ ] Marketing materials
- [ ] Project records

## For each category
- [ ] Identify records exceeding retention period
- [ ] Identify records on legal hold (do not destroy)
- [ ] Identify records of historical significance to archive

## Disposal
- [ ] Secure shredding for paper records — certificate retained
- [ ] Secure deletion for digital records — log of what / when
- [ ] Destruction approved by [Name, role]

## Archive
- [ ] Records of historical value moved to long-term archive
- [ ] Archive index updated

## Report
- [ ] Audit summary stored: volume destroyed, volume archived, exceptions
- [ ] Policy gaps surfaced for next year's review