The imperative for Generally Accepted Recordkeeping Principles™.

• Author: Pulzello, Fred

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Recognizing last fall that the recent economic meltdown would provoke a rush to legislation and additional regulatory oversight--and that recordkeeping is a major component of all operational and oversight functions--ARMA International seized the opportunity to work with legislators and other stakeholders to ensure that proven recordkeeping best practices will be incorporated in the legislation.

It is an urgent mission to prevent a scenario similar to the adverse effect of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which was hastily crafted in response to several cases of financial recordkeeping irregularities, including the Enron/Arthur Andersen debacle, has had on the business community. While well-intentioned, Sarbanes-Oxley's lack of clear guidance and ways to measure compliance has forced organizations to spend billions of dollars in an attempt to comply with its vague reporting and recordkeeping requirements.

Single, Authoritative Source for Recordkeeping Principles

ARMA International also recognized that crafting legislation meant to hold organizations accountable would be facilitated if it could reference a single authoritative, comprehensive, source for recordkeeping best practices that is recognized by global stakeholders, can be implemented consistently across industries and jurisdictions, and provides the ability to measure compliance.

With recordkeeping best practices embodied in a variety of resources and expressed in a variety of ways, ARMA International sought to develop that single source that would serve the same role as the generally accepted accounting principles, better known as GAAP, has served for accounting. Just as GAAP is the basis for applying consistent reporting, valuation, and transparency to financial accounting, ARMA International's Generally Accepted Recordkeeping Principles[SM] (GARP[SM]) is the basis for ensuring integrity, transparency, and accountability in recordkeeping.

To develop GARP[SM], ARMA International brought together renowned records and information management (RIM) experts to review and distill from global best practice resources, including U.S. federal court case law, American national standards, and the international records management standard, ISO15489-1 Information and Documentation--Records Management, the eight principles described on page HT4 and discussed in the articles that appear in this Hot Topic These principles, which were vetted through a public call for comment process involving the professional RIM community, serve as benchmarks by which organizations' recordkeeping programs should operate and regulators can measure their compliance.

Bottom-Line Benefits of RIM

Applied systematically and consistently throughout the enterprise, the principles comprising GARP[SM] will not only help an...