While the differences may not seem obvious at first, chances are that you may get confused and may make your organization suffer if not analyzed carefully. There are crucial differences to emphasize when we speak of Document Management vs Record Management. Let’s see what it holds.
The basic difference between document and record is that the document contains information while the record contains information that can be used as evidence whenever needed. Documents are accessible by everyone or anyone in a company, but records follow strict regulations to allow access, retention and destruction and can’t be modified but generated in an absolutely new form.
Document Management
Every document is worthy as it contains million-dollar information related to a company. Preserving these documents online and offline can help you keep them safe. Document management involves collecting, tracking, managing, storing, modifying, and sharing data available in an organization. All in all, it ensures accountability and transparency to automate and formalize document creation. It focuses on improving organizational efficiency and business processes by organizing existing documents to make it easy to research and retrieve misplaced and wrong documents. Online documentation management reduces the storage space required to store documents.
The Process of Document Management
Conception: The initial version in the form of a blank document can be used for further document creation.
Outline: The content can be drafted in the form of text, images, formatting, etc. and can be edited by various contributors. With different contributors, the chances of overwriting an existing document may increase, and hence it’s important to ensure that these systems are managed well.
- Check-out and Check-in: While working on a document management system, the users can access the changes made by any of the users, but they will not be able to modify it. Once the document is available for check-out, new versions of documents get created every time it gets edited, and thus it would be possible to track changes.
- Co-authoring: It allows multiple users to work on a document management system to work on a document simultaneously and lock the document at a granular level.
Evaluation: Reviewing the document for grammar errors, fluency, spelling, tables, images and vocabulary. You can set milestones and get reviews upon completion to ensure that the final processed document is free of errors.
Revision: The editor makes all necessary changes once the evaluation is completed. New versions are created similar to the previous drafting.
Document Assembly: Complex documents which require terms and conditions can be dealt with by a document management system to ensure that the terms associated with business rules are authentic and to the point.
Approval: Documents that require signatures as a formal approval process, like contracts, undergo this stage.
Final Storage: Storing documents in the repository allows authorized users to easily access the information it contains.
Document management is used to provide accountability and clarity for different projects. To take a look at the other aspect of Document Management vs Record Management, let’s see what record management is all about.
Record Management
Records are secured for specific purposes as these records are evidence of some rule, discussion or transaction, etc. This record could be anything: a contract or a claim document with a claim form, photographs, witness statements or authority statements, etc. These records can’t be altered but a new record can be created if needed.
To identify, store, maintain and manage data related to the workspace in an organization, Record management is used. It keeps data for a specific time period and unit and can only be accessed for regulatory, statutory, fiscal and operational activities. The record management system keeps records that may have some legal significance in their original format. Some organizations secure records both offsite and onsite. For enhanced control, companies manage to operate it through an automated process, which keeps in view: document life cycle, security access, version control, and storage period in a consistent manner. Security within record management software cannot be dodged as it is regulated by standard authorities to prevent data theft and loss.
Process of Record Management
Creation – Records are safeguarded and assigned with unique identifying numbers to keep them accessible throughout life. Context-driven data methodology makes it easy for record managers to define document types.
Authorized access – Who should be given the control to access, read and retrieve records? We all know that we can’t make changes to records but in certain cases, changes can be made to associated metadata for enhanced clarity.
Retention Process: How long it will be kept or secured depends upon the purpose it is to serve. The worth of a document depends upon the historical, administrative, fiscal or legal worth, and based on the records, its retention rules are allotted.
Arrangement– After serving the initial purpose of providing valuable information, these records either become purposeless. It can be sent to the archives or transferred to some other authority for safekeeping.
Final Documentation – From creation to arrangement, it contains all the details about how documentation is managed. These audit trails can be subsidiary records used or preserved by an organization.
Required Skills for Document Management Specialist and Record Management Specialist
Documentation Management Specialist
Given the role of administration and maintenance of company documents, a documentation specialist stores and retrieves documents whenever needed. He secures both paper and electronic files for industries like finance, legal and healthcare. The candidate must possess basic analytical experience, storage knowledge, Data organization, Clinical Documentation Improvement experience, etc.
The document specialist is responsible for no. of tasks, including:
- Properly store or input documents
- Perform administrative tasks like filing, composing reports, scanning, and faxing
- Edit or review documents with proper document control
Record Management Specialist
Record Management Specialists are apt at being independent professionals, requiring no supervision, in their records management team. They are competent to accomplish tasks that require high-level proficiency and accuracy.
- Record maintenance and data entry performance
- Records management program administration
- Exceptional customer service and communication skills
- Update and manage archived inventory records
- Run record protection audits
The Takeaway
Initially, records and documents were created to store and safeguard information, and then software was developed to keep up with technology’s pace and trace the lifecycle of data. Though you may find various differences between the two now, but the sole purpose of Document Management and Record Management is to preserve important evidence or information. Hope this clarifies your dilemma of Document Management vs Record Management. Considering the future of Document Management and Record Management, it can offer great opportunities to aspiring candidates.
About Author
