Cleaning / Organizing neglected paperwork

I am doing some major clearing of clutter and need a lot of guidance.

1. I actually found a metal box of OLD typed (on a typewriter) membership records from over a decade ago. My intent is to shred these. Any problems?

2. There is a 6inch stack on computer generated membership records and ordinances for 2002-2004 on a top shelf. How long do these have to be kept after they show up in the MLS system?

3. I sense there is some potential to get swamped by all the membership record updates, Ordinance summaries, and transaction reports from things like phone number changes. How long must these printouts be maintained?

4. The yellow handwritten Baptism & Confirmation record. After the record shows up in the MLS system do I still have to keep this.

I know this is a lot of questions. Maybe I should have made separate posts for each one. I think this is a manageable calling once I get things in shape. I already discarded a lot of inoperable equipment like broken typewriters. It is actually starting to look like a neat office.


Thanks

Barry

BarryHill wrote:I am doing some major clearing of clutter and need a lot of guidance.

1. I actually found a metal box of OLD typed (on a typewriter) membership records from over a decade ago. My intent is to shred these. Any problems?

2. There is a 6inch stack on computer generated membership records and ordinances for 2002-2004 on a top shelf. How long do these have to be kept after they show up in the MLS system?

3. I sense there is some potential to get swamped by all the membership record updates, Ordinance summaries, and transaction reports from things like phone number changes. How long must these printouts be maintained?

4. The yellow handwritten Baptism & Confirmation record. After the record shows up in the MLS system do I still have to keep this.

I know this is a lot of questions. Maybe I should have made separate posts for each one. I think this is a manageable calling once I get things in shape. I already discarded a lot of inoperable equipment like broken typewriters. It is actually starting to look like a neat office.


Thanks

Barry

There is a post that I had with a lot of answers to your questions: http://tech.lds.org/forum/showthread.php?t=823. The Use and Retention of Records document that you can get from www.ldscatalog.com is the resource to use in determining what to keep and what to shred.

Additionally, there was a message in MLS a few months back that requested Units to send documentation regarding MP ordinations to the records department if they occurred between the years of 1993 and 2001--so that they can verify them and update the information as needed for Lines of Authority.

In general in the US, financial records are kept for 3 years, and membership records are kept for a year, and until you have a Membership Audit done by the stake.

Happy cleaning.

opee wrote:There is a post that I had with a lot of answers to your questions: http://tech.lds.org/forum/showthread.php?t=823. The Use and Retention of Records document that you can get from www.ldscatalog.com is the resource to use in determining what to keep and what to shred.

Additionally, there was a message in MLS a few months back that requested Units to send documentation regarding MP ordinations to the records department if they occurred between the years of 1993 and 2001--so that they can verify them and update the information as needed for Lines of Authority.

Thanks Opee,
That topic is a better place to post my questions and it does add insight. Having been in Information Security with the U.S. Dept of Justice I am not sure "record retention" and "printout retention" is necessarily the same unless the Church specifies MLS printonts. The retention is maintained electronically. Many systems maintaining critical records have actually gone paperless.

Thanks again for directing me to that post.

BarryHill wrote:I
3. I sense there is some potential to get swamped by all the membership record updates, Ordinance summaries, and transaction reports from things like phone number changes. How long must these printouts be maintained?

4. The yellow handwritten Baptism & Confirmation record. After the record shows up in the MLS system do I still have to keep this.

Those printouts are for process tracking purposes.
1. Did you submit and transmit the changes?
2. Did SLC respond later making the changes?
3. Did you look to see if the changes "stuck" after SLC made the changes?

If MLS is all clean, then you can shred the papers.

I have seen the "Use and Retention of Records and Reports" document in the past, but cannot find a copy and cannot locate it on the distribution center website. Does anyone know how to locate a copy?

I think you can find it if you login with your unit login, not just your personal login. But I do not have my unit login handy to check it out, sorry.