Booster Club Document Retention: How long should I keep club files?

Introduction

Most of the times the small organizations and businesses are confused about how long they should keep records. Record-keeping is often challenging, but it needs to be done for a reasonable amount of time – to be on the safe side. Similarly, booster club document retention is also critical to be able to mitigate any risks.

As a general rule, a company should keep the tax-related document for a period of 7 years. It is sufficient time to defend any tax audits, potential claims, or lawsuits. Outside the tax arena, there is very little information as to what you should keep and for how long. However, this article will give you an insight into storing booster club documents efficiently for an extended period of time.

In this article, we will talk about different documents and how long your booster club should keep them. This will help you come up with a strategy for booster club document retention for your booster club. Let’s have a look at the following some different scenarios.

 

Creating a Booster Club Document Retention Policy

Before we dive into what documents to save for how long, we thought it would be helpful to talk about booster club document retention strategy.  Most small organizations typically don’t think about their policy around document strategy, and in many cases this can cause them problems down the line.  To mitigate those potential future problems, we suggest booster club’s take charge by having leadership create a document retention policy. This does not have to be a  very technical document, but should give guidance to club management on which documents to keep for how long. It should  also include some top level guidance as to how to trim saved documents as time goes on.  The end goal of this document is to make the storage of necessary historical documents manageable. A good way to start your Booster Club Document Retention Policy is with this guide!

Why is there a need to retain documents?

You may not realize it but there are a large number of reasons you may need to refer to old documents.  For instance, in the case of potential wrongdoing, the authorities might ask for the booster club records. If you decide to merge your club into another or the school board changes how booster clubs operate, your club records may be needed. Finally because booster club leadership typically transitions frequently, having a good history for the next set of leadership to refer to will help the club continue to grow and operate more efficiently.  These are a just a few examples, but as you can see it really makes goos business and legal sense to have good record keeping.

 

Keeping Booster Club Corporate & Organizational Documents

When we talk about document retention policies, it helps to break douments into categories. The first we are going to discuss are Corporate and Organizational documents.  When we talk about organizational documents, these include the bylaws and articles of incorporation that most business entities create when forming their organization.  The quick and easy answer for these documents is – forever, or as long as the organization exists.  Even if they organization disbands or closes down, the documents should still be kept for an addition 3-5 years.  These documents are crucial to ensure that your organization makes decisions in accordance with the ideals and principles of the business outlined in these documents.

 

How long should I keep my financial documents?

Booster club financial documents include up to five different types, and all of them are equally important. These include income statements, statements of financial position, statements of cash flow, statements of change in equity, and the disclosure to financial statements.

When it comes to financial documents, it helps to have a set of dedicated document retention and destruction guidelines. These will  identify the responsibilities of different staff members, volunteers, the board of directors, and outsiders in relation to an organization’s financial documents. In many cases, with booster clubs the organization may be quite small so this will be easy to put together. The goal is to have these guidelines in place early on so they can be adjusted as the organization grows.

As far as the financial documents themselves, it is generally recommended that you keep financial documents such as statements and disclosures for an indefinite period of time. In many cases they are kept forever, but it depends on the type of financial document itself and its relevance to the business down the line.

 

Time frame for retaining booster club’s communication documents

Communication documents are resources that vary in importance.  These include emails, memorandums, business letters, and business reports, etc.  Most are day to day documents, but some are more important in nature.  In the case of a booster club for instance, emails and regaular leadership/supporter correspondance would be low level communication documents.  However outreach to a large donor might entail higher level communication documents.  Given the varying importance of communication documents, the timeframe for retaining them varies.

Generally speaking, unless your booster club is dealing with HIPAA or SOX email data, your low level communications – including emails can be kept for 1 year.  After that 1 year you are free to delete forever. Keep in mind, even though you can delete emails after a year, you should thoroughl review which emails you delete.  Anything that you deem potentially important in the future, you shoould consider keeping longer.

On the other hand, a communication document that is a legally binding document between your booster club and another party needs to be kept for up to 7 years after the transaction date.  This ensures your club is covered and that you have given adequate time for the agreement to expire or pass. If after 7 years your agreement is still in effect, either you should think about renegotiating to create an updated agreement or keep the original agreement until the relationship expires.

 

Are There Booster Club Document Retention Rules Around Meeting Minutes?

When it comes to booster club meeting minutes, notes and agendas, there are general rules followed in business.

The minutes of meetings are kept for at least seven years. They are official records of actions that the committee or board took during a meeting. At any point you can be asked for written documentation from these meetings and by retaining them for the standard period, you and the club will be covered.

An agenda is a document outlining what needs to be discussed during a meeting. It is usually distributed to all members about 24 hours before the booster club meeting so everyone is prepared. However, because the meeting minutes are created, the agenda records become moot. This makes it the organization decision to keep or discard the agenda.

One last note. If you have a person recording meeting notes during the meeting – typically these notes are destroyed once the meeting minutes document has been created. The notes become redundant and are not required to be stored.

 

Booster Club Document Retention Strategy for Legal Documents

These might include everything ranging from buy-sell agreements, contracts and leases, employment agreements, minutes of meetings, legal correspondence, partnership agreements, stock certificates, and other documents. Because these are a wide range of documents that occur in many different business situations you need to be mindful of these documents. In most cases, a booster club needs to keep all of these legal documents as long as it is operational and perhaps after it is defunct as well.

There is an exception. Expired employment agreements, contracts and leases are able to be destroyed after a period of 7 years. Since thes documents are no longer enforceable, keeping them an additional 7 years reaches their statute of limitations.

 

Booster Club Document Retention Around Personnel

If your booster club is in a position to hire staff, those personnel records must also be kept for some time to protect the organization. For the most part your booster club will probably not run into these documents, but in the offchance it does, here is the general breakdown:

• 2 YEARS: Employment applications for two years, job opening notices
• 3 YEARS: Child labor certificates and notices, employment eligibility verification (I-9 form)
• 4 YEARS: personnel files (4 years after termination date)

Keeping records of chemical and toxic exposures in your Booster Club

Even though this is a longshot, there is a possibility of a chemistry booster club, or robotics booster club might be handling chemicals. While they are most likely not dealing with toxic chemicals, it is always good to have a complete understanding of best practices in handling document retention. In the case of any chemical or toxic exposure, those records should be kept safe for as long as 30 years. These records include the measurement and identification of potentially toxic substances that occurred along with the medical information of the person exposed.

 

Wrapping Up:

Of all of the booster club management tasks, document retention is not the most exciting. However, when it comes to successfully managing your club, document retention is critical to helping your club avoid pitfalls. Your booster club document retention policy will help your club maintain solid footing, proper knoweldge transfer and over time strengthen the overall organization. As a final reminder, the retention times suggested in these articles are general best practices, if you want to be extra safe with your documents, consider holding on to them longer – it never hurts to be on the safe side!