Document management & governance glossary
Plain-language definitions of the document management, governance, compliance, and SharePoint terms real estate operations, legal, and IT teams encounter most.
Document Management
Document Management System (DMS)
A document management system (DMS) is software that stores, organizes, secures, and tracks electronic documents throughout their lifecycle — from creation and version control to retention and disposal.
How ARC-Files helps: ARC-Files layers DMS capabilities — centralized search, metadata governance, and lifecycle automation — directly on top of your existing SharePoint Online libraries, with no separate repository to maintain.
Enterprise Content Management (ECM)
Enterprise content management (ECM) is the strategy and tooling organizations use to capture, manage, store, and deliver content and documents across departments at scale, typically with governance and compliance controls built in.
How ARC-Files helps: ARC-Files provides ECM-style governance — bulk metadata tagging, retention automation, and audit visibility — scoped specifically for multi-market real estate document operations.
Version Control
Version control is the practice of tracking and managing changes to a document over time, so teams can see who changed what, revert to prior versions, and avoid working from outdated copies.
How ARC-Files helps: ARC-Files relies on SharePoint's native versioning and adds Document Templates and Document Mover modules so version history stays intact even as files move between libraries.
Governance & Compliance
Audit Trail
An audit trail is a chronological, tamper-evident record of who accessed, viewed, modified, or deleted a document — used to demonstrate compliance and investigate security incidents.
How ARC-Files helps: The Audit Viewer module gives real estate compliance teams a complete, searchable audit trail across every SharePoint library without leaving the Microsoft 365 tenant.
Records Management
Records management is the discipline of governing the creation, retention, and eventual disposal of business records according to legal, regulatory, and organizational requirements.
How ARC-Files helps: Retention Manager automates retention scheduling and disposal alerts across every market and library, so nothing is deleted too early or kept indefinitely by default.
Document Retention Policy
A document retention policy defines how long specific categories of documents must be kept before they can be archived or destroyed, based on legal, tax, or regulatory obligations.
How ARC-Files helps: ARC-Files lets governance teams define retention rules once and apply them consistently across every SharePoint library and market through the Retention Manager module.
SOX 404 Compliance
SOX 404 (Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404) requires public companies to maintain and annually assess internal controls over financial reporting, including controls over how financial and supporting documents are stored, accessed, and audited.
How ARC-Files helps: Permissions Viewer and Audit Viewer give REITs and publicly traded real estate operators the access visibility and audit evidence needed to support SOX 404 control assessments.
Real Estate Operations
Real Estate Document Management
Real estate document management refers to the specific practices and tools used to organize leases, legal documents, insurance records, and property files across multiple properties and markets, with an emphasis on expiration tracking and tenant-facing access.
How ARC-Files helps: ARC-Files combines Document Search, Tenant Portal, Property Export, and Expiration Alerts to give CRE operators and portfolio managers unified visibility across every property.