RECORD TYPES
Public employees create, receive, and manage thousands of distinct records. A typical State court, for example, is responsible for filing and controlling more than 500 different records that are created or received through court proceedings. At the core of every record, however, is a general record type. For instance, the Department of Health's "Asbestos Contractor Entity Application Form" and the Department of Banking, Insurance, Securities, and Health Care Administration's "Debt Adjustor Application" are both applications even though they support different activities and functions.
Record Types:
| Authorized Term | Definition | Code |
| Accounts (Lists) | This record type is reserved for precise lists or enumerations of financial transactions including, but not limited to, statements summarizing transactions related to credits, debits, accruals, and adjustments that have occurred. | 1 |
| Accounts (Statements) | This record type is reserved for recorded narratives or summaries of events. See "Declarations" for formal statements. | 138 |
| Acknowledgments | This record type is reserved for formal declarations made to authoritative witnesses to ensure legal validity. | 109 |
| Advertisements | This record type is reserved for public notices or paid announcements, especially those in print. | 112 |
| Affidavits | This record type is reserved for written declarations made under oath before a notary public or other authorized officer. | 3 |
| Agendas | This record type is reserved for documents, often in list form, stating things to be done, as items of business or discussions to be brought up at a meeting. | 4 |
| Agreements | This record type is reserved for written arrangements between parties regarding a course of action. | 5 |
| Amendments | This record type is reserved for additions, deletions, or changes to an existing record, usually a legal instrument. | 147 |
| Announcements | This record type is reserved for statements or notices that inform the reader of an event or other news. | 6 |
| Answers | This record type is reserved for formal written statements admitting or denying the allegations in complaints. Usually the first responsive pleading filed by the defendant in an administrative or civil action. | 7 |
| Applications | This record type is reserved for documents, usually forms, used by persons requesting assistance, authorization, employment, admission, or other action. | 8 |
| Appraisals | This record type is reserved for printed or written statements of evaluation or estimate of the market or other value, cost, utility or other attribute of land, buildings, works of art, or other objects of property, by qualified persons. | 9 |
| Articles of incorporation | This record type is reserved for written agreements embodying the purposes or other conditions of the association of a number of persons for the pursuit of a joint enterprise; especially those duly executed and filed with a state's administrative authorities so as to have the force of a charter under general incorporation law. | 134 |
| Audits | This record type is reserved for final reports following formal examinations of accounts. | 10 |
| Authorizations | This record type is reserved for written documents describing written permissions from an authoritative body allowing recipients to gain certain rights or privileges or perform specific activities. | 141 |
| Ballots | This record type is reserved for sheets of paper, cards, or other devices used to cast a vote or announce a slate of candidates. | 129 |
| Bids | This record type is reserved for written offers or proposals to sell goods or services for a stated price. | 149 |
| Bills (legislative records) | This record type is reserved for drafts of proposed laws introduced in a legislative body. | 11 |
| Biographies | This record type is reserved for written accounts of the lives of individuals. | 13 |
| Bonds (legal records) | This record type is reserved for agreements pledging liability for financial or personal loss caused to another party. | 14 |
| Bonds (negotiable instruments) | This record type is reserved for interest-bearing certificates of public or private debt, usually offered in series, constituting promises to pay the lender a certain amount of money at a fixed future date. | 15 |
| Briefs (legal documents) | This record type is reserved for concise statements of the arguments of a party to a case in dispute, submitted to the court or other body hearing the case. | 16 |
| Brochures | This record type is reserved for small printed works describing the features or amenities of a place, an organization, or other concern, generally intended as advertisement. | 114 |
| Budgets | This record type is reserved for statements documenting the expenditure of funds, accounting for funds, routine purchases and other activities of an accounting or financial nature. | 17 |
| Bylaws | This record type is reserved for laws, ordinances, or regulations made by a public or private corporation, association, or unincorporated society for the regulation of its own local or internal affairs, for its dealings with others, or for the government of its members. | 18 |
| Calendars | This record type is reserved for schedules of events or ordered lists of matters to be considered. | 19 |
| Case files | Case files (which includes project files) is not a record type in itself. All record types within a case file should be inventoried to determine their specific legal and administrative requirements. | 20 |
| Certificates | This record type is reserved for written documents that is official verification that a condition or requirement has, or has not, been met. | 21 |
| Charters | This record type is reserved for documents granting specific rights, setting forth aims and principles of a newly established entity, and often embodying formal agreements and authorizing special privileges or exemptions. | 106 |
| Checklists | This record type is reserved for lists in which items can be compared, scheduled, verified, or identified. | 22 |
| Checks (bank checks) | This record type is reserved for written orders drawn on a bank or the Treasury of the United States to pay on demand a specified sum of money to a named person, to his order, or to bearer, out of money on deposit to the credit of the writer; must be endorsed to be transferred. | 23 |
| Commercials | This record type is reserved for announcements paid for by an advertiser and broadcast on radio or television. For other public notices or paid announcements, especially those in print, see "advertisements." | 113 |
| Complaints | This record type is reserved for written expressions of dissatisfaction. Includes grievances and formal pleadings that initiate administrative or civil actions or, in criminal law, pleadings that set forth the basis upon which a person is charged with an offense. | 24 |
| Contacts | This record type is reserved for agency contact information for individuals or organizations in support of a particular function or activity. | 25 |
| Contracts | This record type is reserved for documents, enforceable by law, embodying agreements between two or more competent parties to do or not to do something, and specifying the terms and conditions of the agreement. | 26 |
| Conveyances | This record type is reserved for written instruments that transfers some ownership interest in property from one person to another. | 27 |
| Correspondence (Routine) | This record type is reserved for routine or general recorded communication concerning day-to-day agency activities, including routine correspondence with other agencies or the public. Also see: Correspondence (Substantive). | 28 |
| Correspondence (Substantive) | This record type is reserved for correspondence that has significant administrative value and/or is essential to supporting a final decision. Includes executive-level correspondence concerning agency policies and procedures. Also see: Correspondence (Routine). | 53 |
| Cover letters | This record type is reserved for letters sent with other documents to explain more fully or provide more information. Broader term: Letters. | 29 |
| Databases | This record type is reserved for structured assemblies of logically related data, usually machine-readable data, designed to meet various applications but managed independently of them. | 30 |
| Datasheets | This record type is reserved for documents summarizing the performance and other characteristics of a component (e.g. an electronic component) or sub-system (e.g. a power supply) in sufficient detail to be used by a design engineer to design the component into a system. | 31 |
| Decisions | This record type is reserved for written conclusions reached after an evaluation of facts and law. | 133 |
| Declarations | This record type is reserved for formal statements intended to create, preserve, assert, or testify to a right or document a fact. See "Accounts (Statements)" for informal statements. | 32 |
| Decrees | This record type is reserved for judicial decisions issued in an equity or probate court and doctrinal or disciplinary religious orders applying or interpreting articles of canon law. | 33 |
| Deeds | This record type is reserved for written documents that are signed and delivered by which one person conveys property to another. | 142 |
| Deposit, Certificates of | This record type is reserved for receipts from a bank certifying that a specified sum of money has been received for deposit, often for a specified length of time and at specified rates of interest. | 34 |
| Depositions | This record type is reserved for testimonies of witnesses, under oath or affirmation, before a person empowered to administer oaths. | 107 |
| Dockets | This record type is reserved for calendars of proceedings and/or abstracts or listings of all actions and pleadings filed pursuant to a judicial, quasi-judicial, and administrative proceeding. | 117 |
| Drafts | This record type is reserved for preliminary or tentative versions of documents. | 37 |
| Ephemera | This record type is reserved for items or printed material produced for a specific, limited use, and usually intended to be discarded thereafter. | 128 |
| Evidence | This record type is reserved for documentary information gathered as part of an investigation or presented at a judicial, quasi-judicial, and administrative proceeding for the purpose of establishing the truth of falsity of an allegation of fact. Also see "Exhibits." | 136 |
| Examinations (documents) | This record type is reserved for written questions or exercises testing knowledge, aptitude, or skills. | 38 |
| Exhibits | This record type is reserved for documents produced and exhibited as proof of facts, or as otherwise connected with the subject matter, and which, on being accepted, is marked for identification and considered part of the case file. Also see "Evidence." | 40 |
| Field notes | This record type is reserved for notes, often in books, kept by researchers or surveying parties while on site. | 41 |
| Form letters | This record type is reserved for master forms and templates prepared in advance of actual use that contain prepared spaces for insertion of information. | 131 |
| Grants | This record type is reserved for grant acceptance or approval, completion and conformance with grant stipulations that are not of a fiscal nature. | 43 |
| Guidelines | This record type is reserved for statements or other indications of policy or procedure by which to determine a course of action | 44 |
| Histories | This record type is reserved for documents illustrating a chronological record of events, as of the life or development of a people, country, or institution. | 45 |
| Images | This record type is reserved for photographs, negatives, digital files, etc. created by or for an agency. Includes events that document the agency’s organization, special ceremonies, occasions, events and facilities. May include commercially available material. | 46 |
| Indexes | This record type is reserved for lists, usually in alphabetical order, of persons and/or subjects referred to in documents, with location of references thereto. | 47 |
| Inventories | This record type is reserved for detailed lists of things in one's view or possession, as of all goods and materials on hand, or detailed lists of all items in a given category. For documentation of examination conducted to achieve a comprehensive view, see "surveys." | 48 |
| Invoices | This record type is reserved for documents showing items supplied, together with the prices charged for each; also, itemized bills or accounts. | 49 |
| Judgments | This record type is reserved for final decisions by a court or other tribunal that resolves controversy and determines the rights and obligations of the parties. Broader term: Decisions. | 123 |
| Laws | This record type is reserved for rules of conduct or procedure established by custom, agreement, or authority. | 140 |
| Leases | This record type is reserved for contracts granting use or occupation of property during a specified period in exchange for a specified rent. | 143 |
| Legislative acts | This record type is reserved for laws or statutes passed by a legislature. | 137 |
| Licenses | This record type is reserved for documents evidencing a right or permission, granted to an individual or organization in accordance with law by a competent authority, to engage in some transaction, business, or occupation, or to do some act. | 54 |
| Lists | This record type is reserved for a series, as of names or words, printed or written down; A roster. | 55 |
| Logs | This record type is reserved for records documenting the performance of an object or the progress of an undertaking. | 145 |
| Manifests | This record type is reserved for lists or invoices of cargo or passengers, as of a ship or plane, usually containing marks or indications of contents or commodity, consignee, and other pertinent information for use at terminals or customhouses. | 56 |
| Maps | This record type is reserved for graphic representations, drawn to scale and usually on a flat surface, of features, usually geographic, geologic, or geopolitical, of an area of the Earth or of any celestial body. | 57 |
| Memoranda | This record type is reserved for documents recording information used for internal communication. | 58 |
| Minutes | This record type is reserved for records of what was said and done at meetings or conferences. | 59 |
| Newsletters | This record type is reserved for periodic reports on the activities of a business or organization. | 120 |
| Notes | This record type is reserved for brief statements of a fact or experience, written down for review, or as an aid to memory, or to inform someone else; also includes short, informal letters. | 60 |
| Notices, Legal | This record type is reserved for formal announcements, notifications, or warnings that are required by law. | 50 |
| Oaths | This record type is reserved for any forms of attestation by which persons signify that they are bound in conscience to perform an act faithfully and truthfully; also affirmations of the truth of a statement given before testifying, as in a court of law. | 108 |
| Opinions | This record type is reserved for formal expressions of the opinion formed by some superior authority on matters referred to its decision and forwarded to inferior authorities for their instruction and government. | 62 |
| Orders | This record type is reserved for directions or commands delivered by a court or other adjudicative body and entered into the record but not necessarily included in the final judgment or verdict. | 63 |
| Ordinances | This record type is reserved for statutes or regulations, especially as enacted by local government. | 64 |
| Pardons | This record type is reserved for official documents declaring the exemption of a convicted person from the penalties of an offense or crime by the power of the executor of laws. | 127 |
| Payrolls | This record type is reserved for lists, sometimes recorded in book form, of those entitled to receive compensation at a given time and of the amounts due to each. | 65 |
| Permits | This record type is reserved for documents which grant a person the right to do something not forbidden by law but not allowable without such authority. | 66 |
| Petitions | This record type is reserved for any written requests and lists of signatures submitted to an authority to appeal for the performance of specific action. | 67 |
| Plans (drawings) | This record type is reserved for drawings, sketches, or diagrams of any object, made by projection upon a flat surface, usually a horizontal plane. The term is particularly used to refer to drawings or diagrams showing the relative positions of the parts of a building, or of any one floor of a building, projected upon a horizontal plane. The term can also be used for a set of drawings for a project. For general reference to depictions or photographs showing structures or sites seen from directly above, use "plan views." For representations of portions of the Earth's surface see "maps" or "plans (maps)." For land boundary plans, see "Plats." | 68 |
| Plans (reports) | This record type is reserved for reports describing a proposed or tentative project or course of action. | 69 |
| Plats | This record type is reserved for maps, plans, or charts of a city, town, section, subdivision, or other specific land area, indicating the location and boundaries of individual properties. | 146 |
| Pleadings | This record type is reserved for written statements of claims and defenses made by parties in a judicial, quasi-judicial, or administrative proceeding. | 126 |
| Policies | This record type is reserved for written plans, courses of action, or guiding principles intended to influence and determine decisions, actions, and other matters. | 70 |
| Presentations | This record type is reserved for spoken or visual representations of information, such as speeches, demonstrations, and slide shows, for the purpose of achieving favorable visibility and persuading an audience to believe or support the presentor's ideas, projects, or goals. | 71 |
| Press releases | This record type is reserved for official or authoritative statements distributed to the press. | 72 |
| Procedures | This record type is reserved for sets of instructions or steps necessarily to perform a specific task. | 73 |
| Proclamations | This record type is reserved for documents that are publicly announced or officially declared; especially a public notice by an official of some order, intended action, or state of facts. | 110 |
| Publications | This record type is reserved for printed material offered for sale or distribution. | 74 |
| Purchase orders | This record type is reserved for documents authorizing a vendor to deliver materials or equipment, or to perform services, which upon acceptance constitutes a purchase contract. | 75 |
| Questionnaires | This record type is reserved for documents containing a set of questions for submission to a number of persons in order to obtain statistically useful information. Use "surveys" for documentation of inspections conducted to achieve a comprehensive view. | 76 |
| Receipts | This record type is reserved for written acknowledgment of the receiving or taking of goods or money delivered or paid. | 77 |
| Records schedules | This record type is reserved for documents describing the recurring records of an organization or administrative unit, specifying those records to be preserved as having archival value, and authorizing, on a continuing basis and after the lapse of specified retention periods and the occurrence of specified actions or events, the destruction of the remaining records. | 79 |
| Reference sources | This record type is reserved for sources intended primarily for consultation rather than for consecutive reading. | 80 |
| Referrals | This record type is reserved for written recommendations submitted to an authority or professional group or person for arbitration, decision, or examination. | 153 |
| Registers | This record type is reserved for official lists of entries of any information considered sufficiently important to be exactly and formally recorded, typically maintained in numerical or chronological order in a regular manner. | 81 |
| Registrations | This record type is reserved for documents attesting to acts of registering. | 132 |
| Releases | This record type is reserved for documents giving permission for the use of an item requested. | 115 |
| Reports | This record type is reserved for official or formal statements of facts or proceedings (courses of action). | 144 |
| Requests | This record type is reserved for written expressions or demands for assistance, services, actions, or acknowledgements. | 139 |
| Requests for proposals | This record type is reserved for documents that formally solicit bids, whether cost-based or otherwise, for services or products of the State. | 83 |
| Requisitions | This record type is reserved for written demands that something be furnished; also demands or applications made, usually with authority, as a demand made by military authorities upon civilians for supplies. | 84 |
| Research notes | This record type is reserved for notes made in the course of creative, scholarly, or scientific inquiry. | 85 |
| Returns | This record type is reserved for certified reports by a public official such as an judge, assessor, election officer, or collector. | 151 |
| Rosters | This record type is reserved for any list of names of persons enrolled or enlisted for a particular purpose, as a list of names of military personnel enrolled for active duty. | 86 |
| Rules of procedure | This record type is reserved for rules made by a legislative or administrative body concerning the mode and manner of conducting its business and for the purpose of making an orderly and proper disposition of the matters before it. | 2 |
| Schedules | This record type is reserved for plans of procedure, showing the sequence of items or operations and the time allotted for each. | 88 |
| Sound recordings | This record type is reserved for discs, tapes, filaments, or other media on which sound has been recorded. | 89 |
| Speeches | This record type is reserved for documents containing the text of any public address or talk. | 105 |
| Statements of Work | This record type is reserved for detailed descriptions of work written in a proposal to be performed under a contract. | 148 |
| Statistics | This record type is reserved for quantitative assessment of an operation, project, program, etc. | 90 |
| Statutes | This record type is reserved for acts of a legislature declaring, commanding, or prohibiting something, expressed according to the forms necessary to constitute law. For regulations having the force of law issued by a government agency in order to interpret or implement the provisions of a statute, use "administrative regulations." | 91 |
| Stipulations | This record type is reserved for written terms or conditions put forward as a necessary part of an agreement. Terms within a written contract; also, any set of conditions. | 92 |
| Studies | This record type is reserved for recorded results of diligent and systematic inquiry or investigation into a subject made to discover or revise facts, theories, or applications. | 116 |
| Subpoenas | This record type is reserved for commands to appear at a certain time and place to give testimony upon a certain matter. | 121 |
| Summaries | This record type is reserved for presentations of the substance of a body of material in a condensed form or by reducing it to its main points; an abstract. | 94 |
| Summones | This record type is reserved for instruments delivered by a sheriff or other appropriate party, notifying a person that a court action has been commenced against the person and that the person is required to appear in court on the day named to answer the complaint. | 95 |
| Supporting material | This record type is reserved for recorded material received by an agency to support, supplement, or complement another record, such an application, agenda, report, etc. | 36 |
| Surveys | This record type is reserved for documentation of examinations or inspections conducted in order to achieve a comprehensive view, as of a place, a group of related items, or to ascertain condition or value. For detailed lists of items on hand, or of items in a given category, use "inventories." For sets of questions submitted to a number of persons to obtain information, see "questionnaires." For land boundary surveys, see "Plats." | 96 |
| Transcripts | This record type is reserved for copies transcribed from an original text or document and also for written records of words originally spoken, such as of judicial, quasi-judicial, and administrative proceedings, broadcasts, or oral histories. | 99 |
| Verdicts | This record type is reserved for formal decisions or findings made by a jury concerning the questions submitted to it during a trial. | 100 |
| Vouchers | This record type is reserved for documents serving as evidence or proof, specifically, a receipt or statement attesting to the expenditure or receipt of money, usually accompanied by bills or other evidence of indebtedness or expenditure. | 101 |
| Waivers | This record type is reserved for written statements renunciating, abandoning or surrendering some legal claim, right, or privilege. | 150 |
| Warrants | This record type is reserved for documents giving authority to do something; especially used in civil and criminal law for the arrest of persons or for their production in court as witnesses. | 102 |
| Wills | This record type is reserved for legal instruments in which a person declares the disposition of his/her property, to take effect after his/her death, and which is revocable during the lifetime of that person. | 103 |
| Worksheets | This record type is reserved for documents used in making preliminary plans, auxiliary computations, notes, or comments as a guide in doing some piece of work. | 104 |
| Writs | This record type is reserved for orders in writing, issued under seal (in the name of the sovereign or a court or judicial officer) from the proper authority, commanding the person to whom it is directed to perform or refrain from performing an act specified therein. | 122 |
SOMETHING MISSING? This page is updated nightly. Please contact Tanya Marshall at to discuss adding new record types to the Thesaurus.
To learn more about Managing Records, CONTACT:
- TANYA MARSHALL, Assistant State Archivist
- EMAIL:
- PHONE: 802-828-0405
This page was last updated on: 2007-10-05.
