5 Signs Your Records Management Program Needs an Upgrade

Most organizations don't think about records management until something goes wrong—a failed audit, a missing document, or a storage invoice that's suddenly twice what it was three years ago. By then, the problems have been building for a while.

Here are five warning signs that your records program has outgrown its current setup, and what you can do about each one.

1. You Can't Find Records When You Need Them

This is the most obvious sign, and the most damaging. When a regulator requests documentation, when legal needs files for discovery, or when a department head needs last year's budget records, the clock starts ticking. If your answer to any of these requests is "give us a few days," your records program is failing its primary purpose.

The root cause is usually one of two things: either your records aren't indexed in a searchable system, or your indexing is inconsistent. Boxes labeled "Finance 2019" without detailed contents lists are effectively black holes. You know the records exist, but finding a specific document requires physically opening boxes and searching by hand.

The fix: Implement a records inventory system with standardized cataloging. Every box should be searchable by department, date range, record type, and retention status. Platforms like LRG+ make this searchable from any browser, so retrieval becomes a search query instead of a field trip to the storage room.

2. Your Storage Costs Keep Climbing—But You're Not Adding More Records

If your monthly storage bill increases every year even though your organization isn't growing proportionally, you're likely holding records past their required retention period. This is one of the most common and costly records management failures.

Without a retention policy that actively tracks disposition dates, records accumulate indefinitely. Boxes that were eligible for destruction five years ago are still sitting in storage, generating monthly charges. Over time, this adds up to thousands of dollars spent storing records you're legally permitted—and often better off—destroying.

The fix: Conduct a retention audit. Map every record type to its applicable retention requirement, identify what's eligible for destruction, and implement a disposition workflow that flags records as they reach their retention date. This alone can reduce storage volume by 20–40% for organizations that haven't performed a purge in recent years.

3. Your Retention Policy Is Outdated—Or Doesn't Exist

A surprising number of organizations operate without a formal, written retention policy. Others have a policy that was created years ago and never updated to reflect changes in regulations, organizational structure, or record types.

An outdated or missing retention policy creates two risks simultaneously. First, you may be destroying records too early, exposing your organization to compliance violations. Second, you may be keeping records too long, increasing your liability in litigation (you can be compelled to produce any record you possess, even if you could have legally destroyed it under a proper policy).

The fix: If you don't have a retention policy, create one. If you have one, review it. A good retention policy should be reviewed annually and updated whenever regulations change, new record types are created, or your organizational structure shifts. LRG develops custom retention policies mapped to your specific industry, jurisdiction, and operational needs.

4. You Dread Audits and Examinations

If the announcement of an upcoming audit triggers a multi-week scramble to locate documents, organize files, and piece together compliance documentation, your records program isn't supporting your organization—it's a liability.

Audit readiness should be a permanent state, not an event-driven emergency. Organizations with mature records programs can respond to audit requests within hours because their records are indexed, their retention schedules are current, and their chain-of-custody documentation is complete. Organizations without these systems spend weeks preparing for what should be a routine process.

The fix: Shift from reactive to proactive records management. This means maintaining a current inventory at all times, tracking every record's retention status, and documenting every destruction event with certificates that prove you followed your policy. When auditors arrive, you hand them the documentation instead of scrambling to create it.

5. Only One Person Knows Where Everything Is

This is the most dangerous sign of all, and the one most organizations ignore until it's too late. If your records knowledge lives in one person's head—a longtime office manager, an administrative assistant, or a department coordinator—your organization is one retirement, resignation, or sick day away from losing access to its own records.

Institutional knowledge is valuable, but it's not a records management system. When that key person leaves, they take with them the knowledge of which boxes contain what, where the overflow storage went, which records were moved during the last office renovation, and what the unlabeled boxes in the back corner actually contain.

The fix: Digitize the institutional knowledge. Every record should be cataloged in a system that anyone with appropriate access can search. The goal is to make records retrieval a process, not a person. A centralized platform like LRG+ ensures that your records inventory is documented, searchable, and independent of any single individual.

Taking the First Step

If you recognized your organization in one or more of these signs, you're not alone. Most organizations we work with come to us because they've reached a tipping point—the current approach is creating more problems than it solves, and they know something needs to change.

The good news is that records management problems are solvable. A structured assessment can identify exactly where the gaps are, what's at risk, and what it takes to get to a compliant, efficient, audit-ready state. It doesn't require replacing everything at once. Often, the biggest improvements come from the simplest changes: a proper retention policy, consistent indexing, and a system that makes records findable.