Records preservation checklist before shutting down a company

What records need preserving before a shutdown?#

Records needing preservation before a shutdown fall into three groups: records the law or contracts require you to keep, records needed to finish the wind-down, and operational records that may still have value. Each group has a different owner and a different end date, so tag every archive with its group as you go.

Paper and devices count too. Filing cabinets, offsite storage boxes, laptops returned by departing staff and phones with business texts can hold the only copy of some records, and they are easy to recycle or wipe by mistake in the last weeks of operation.

Step 1: secure admin access before anyone leaves#

Securing admin access means at least two remaining people can sign in as administrators to every system before layoffs or resignations begin. Departing staff often hold the only admin role in a niche tool, and once their accounts are disabled, recovering control through a vendor can be slow or impossible.

• 1List every system from recent card and bank statements, the single sign-on dashboard and expense reports.
• 2Name two retained admins per system and move admin roles off departing staff before their last day.
• 3Move multi-factor recovery from personal phones to a shared, documented method the company controls.
• 4Export the shared password manager vault, or confirm a retained admin can open it.
• 5Confirm who controls the domain registrar and DNS, since email and password resets for every other tool depend on them.
• 6Record the billing owner for each subscription so a failed payment does not trigger early cancellation.

Step 2: export each system and verify the export#

Exporting a system means producing a complete copy in a format someone can open without the vendor, then proving the copy is complete. Many help desks, CRMs and chat tools limit what a standard export includes, such as attachments, deleted items or history from before a plan change, so check each vendor's documentation before relying on the default.

Verification is the step most teams skip. Run these checks on every core system, store two copies in separate locations, and only then mark the system as preserved.

• 1Record counts in the export match what the live system reports, checked by year or by project rather than as one total.
• 2Attachments, images and linked files open, not just the parent tickets, orders or pages.
• 3Timestamps, authors and assignees survived, including for users who were deactivated years ago.
• 4Custom fields, tags and statuses came through, since they often record how each item was resolved.
• 5Archived, closed or deleted items are either included or written down as a known gap.
• 6A short readme records the export date, method, format, the person responsible and where each copy is stored.

Step 3: suspend deletion and place retention holds#

Retention holds stop records from being deleted while the company decides what to keep. Many workplace tools run automatic deletion rules set years earlier, such as chat messages expiring, closed tickets purging or former staff mailboxes being removed, and those rules keep running during a wind-down unless someone turns them off.

If a lawsuit, government inquiry or creditor dispute is pending or reasonably expected, counsel may need to issue a litigation hold that covers specific people and systems. Records under a hold should not be destroyed even if a retention schedule says they could be. A written retention and deletion schedule helps reconcile holds, legal minimums and customer deletion promises in one place.

Step 4: collect the rights documents that govern the records#

Rights documents are the contracts, policies and notices that decide what anyone may do with the records later, whether that is handing them to a buyer, keeping them for claims or licensing a prepared copy. They are easy to lose because they sit in email attachments, e-signature accounts and former employees' drives.

• 1Customer contracts, master service agreements, order forms and data processing agreements, including expired ones.
• 2Every version of the privacy policy and terms of service, with the dates each was in force.
• 3Employee handbooks, acceptable use policies, monitoring notices and offer letter templates.
• 4NDAs with customers, prospects, vendors and potential acquirers.
• 5Vendor and SaaS terms covering data ownership, export and deletion after termination.
• 6IP assignment agreements from founders, employees and contractors.
• 7Board consents and resolutions that authorize the wind-down and name who may sign.

Step 5: cancel subscriptions in reverse dependency order#

Subscription shutoff is the last step, and the order follows dependencies: tools nothing else relies on go first, while identity, email and the domain go last. Cancelling the identity provider early can lock everyone out of tools still needed, and letting the domain lapse breaks password resets for everything else.

Illustrative: an industrial supply distributor closes in order#

Illustrative: a fictional industrial supply distributor with more than 50 employees at its peak decides to close after its owner retires without a buyer. It runs Acumatica for orders and inventory, a help desk for customer service, Microsoft 365 for email and files, and an EDI provider for trading partner transactions.

The wind-down officer first moves admin roles off the warehouse manager and a departing IT contractor. Exports from Acumatica and the help desk are checked against open orders and ticket counts. The officer learns that the EDI provider keeps transaction logs only while the account is active, so those logs are exported before notice is given. Mailbox retention rules are paused, and every customer agreement and privacy policy version is saved to one folder.

The result is a complete archive with its known gaps written down. The accountant has what the final returns need, and the order-exception history, which links customer requests to the actions taken, is set aside for a licensing assessment before the ERP subscription ends.

How SourceX fits into a preservation plan#

SourceX can run a fit check while systems are still live, because the check collects metadata such as system names, record families and date ranges, not files. Timing matters in a shutdown: an assessment done before cancellation can still lead to a license, while one done after cancellation often cannot.

If records proceed, the SourceX five-step transaction begins with Supply, where the preserved inventory becomes the scope, and Rights, where the documents gathered in step four are reviewed before Preparation, Approval and Delivery. The supplier approves each step.