26Mcubic feet
Federal records held in NARA's Federal Records Centers
Source · NARA, By the Numbers (2026)
Records agencies store with the Federal Records Centers, separate from archival holdings and from the paper agencies still hold on-site.
Paper records, held to the same standard.
The paper agencies still hold (classified holdings, active intake, digitization backlogs) carries the same NARA UERM obligations as everything else. RMA iQ manages paper, media, and microform to that standard: one catalog, one retention schedule, one audit trail, on a defensible timeline.
1 Retention scheduleOne schedule governs electronic and physical records alike
1 Audit trailSpans paper, digital, and the move between them
3 Physical units, one standardFiles, folders, and boxes, governed like your digital records
Up to IL7 Deployment posturesFedRAMP cloud, agency cloud, or on-prem up to IL7 (TS/SCI)
What UERM requires, and what paper has historically had.
Most agencies have made real progress on electronic recordkeeping. The paper that remains carries the same NARA UERM obligations, and the tooling to meet them reliably is usually what's missing. Paper is where those obligations are hardest to meet, and where Feith closes the gap.
June 302024
The date NARA stopped accepting analog record transfers
Source · OMB/NARA M-23-07
Agencies now manage permanent records electronically, with limited exceptions approved by NARA.
29%of agencies
Did not meet the June 2024 deadline for permanent electronic management
Source · NARA Federal Agency Records Management Annual Report, 2024
Half of those agencies had requested exceptions from NARA.
Paper has no records baseline built in. RMA iQ supplies the evidence stream for physical custody, the same one it supplies for M365 and Google.
Record identification
A unique, persistent identifier linked to the record's metadata.
What paper has had
A folder label, often handwritten, with no enforced link to metadata.
What RMA iQ adds
Barcode generation, a persistent catalog, scannable IDs.
Custody and access
Identity-bound check-in and check-out, role-scoped and time-stamped.
What paper has had
A paper checkout card, signed by hand and kept locally.
What RMA iQ adds
RMA iQ check-in / check-out, SSO, role-scoped permissions.
Location tracking
An authoritative current location with the full move history.
What paper has had
Institutional knowledge held by file-room staff, occasionally a spreadsheet.
What RMA iQ adds
A hierarchical location model with scan-driven move history.
Retention enforcement
A schedule applied per record, event-triggered where required.
What paper has had
A calendar reminder or a quarterly review by the records officer.
What RMA iQ adds
Records Schedule Administrator, event triggers, automatic holds.
Disposition execution
An approval workflow and a complete record of every disposition.
What paper has had
An approval signed and filed; destruction performed by a vendor.
What RMA iQ adds
Automatic Disposition & Transfer, approval-gated destruction, a recorded destruction event.
Audit trail
Who did what, when, why, and where, tamper-evident and query-ready.
What paper has had
The checkout card, if it was retained, plus the disposition paperwork.
What RMA iQ adds
A UERM-compliant log of every event.
Search and retrieval
Findable by content, metadata, physical address, or context.
What paper has had
The records officer or file-room staff, working from memory and finding aids.
What RMA iQ adds
Indexed metadata, OCR on digitized copies, federated search across substrates.
Disposition reporting
On-demand, inspection-ready exports.
What paper has had
A logbook, summarized at the end of the fiscal year.
What RMA iQ adds
RMA iQ reporting, scheduled and ad hoc.
RMA iQ supplies the missing evidence stream.
The same catalog, retention engine, and event log that govern your digital records, applied to paper, media, and microform.
See what it looks like in practiceWhen paper becomes digital, the record keeps going.
Since June 30, 2024, permanent records must be managed electronically, with limited exceptions approved by NARA. RMA iQ handles both ends of the journey on one platform.
Paper
Intake
box · folder · media
Paper
Under management
managed on paper terms
Paper → digital
Digitized
scan · OCR · metadata
Digital
Under management
managed on digital terms
One UERM audit trail · continuous across every state
Paper is managed on paper terms (barcode, location, checkout, retention) until it's digitized, and the digitized output then enters the same lifecycle controls as every other record. Paper and digital records run on the same retention schedules and disposition rules.
For agencies operating under NARA exceptions, RMA iQ manages the paper still in custody under the same schedule and controls as the electronic records.
Paper, managed like electronic records.
It all runs on the platform that already manages your electronic records.
Catalog and barcode
Every box, folder, and item gets a unique scannable ID generated by RMA iQ and printed on standard label stock. The catalog tracks what the ID points to, where it lives, who can reach it, and how long it stays.
Check in, check out
When a record leaves its location, RMA iQ logs the check-out, records the requester, time-stamps the move, and tracks the record in transit. Returns scan back the same way. The history stays with the record permanently.
Location custody
Locations are modeled as a hierarchy (facility, room, shelf, container, position) that mirrors how records live in the building. A barcode scan updates a record's location instantly. Movement reports show the full custody chain for any record, container, or window of time.
Retention and disposition
Paper runs on the same retention schedules as electronic records. Records Schedule Administrator attaches a schedule on intake; Automatic Disposition & Transfer gates destruction behind approvals, records the destruction event, and keeps a complete record of the disposition.
Digitization on the way in
High-speed scanning, batch ingestion, OCR, and metadata extraction run on the same platform that manages the paper. The digitized output then enters the same lifecycle controls as every other record.
Audit trail across substrates
Every read, write, move, scan, check-out, and disposition decision is logged to one UERM-compliant store. The trail is identical in shape whether a record lived as paper, as digital, or crossed between the two. Exports are query-ready for FOIA, OIG, GAO, and NARA inspections.
How paper records flow through the platform.
Paper flows through dedicated capture endpoints on the physical floor, terminates in the same catalog and retention machinery that manages electronic records, and surfaces through applications built for the records officer's day and the custodian's floor work.
One platform · three tiers
Physical floorRecords facility
Records on the shelfHigh-speed scannerHandheld & mobile scannersBarcode label printerCustodian terminal
Capture · barcode scan-driven events
Platform layerCapture & management
Paper capture serviceBarcode serviceRMA iQ catalogRetention engineDisposition workflow
Electronic sources M365GoogleFile sharesServiceNow
Surfaced through role-scoped access
SurfacesApplications
Records officer consoleCustodian mobile portalReports & exports
Unified UERM audit trail Floor events · management events · application events · one tamper-evident store
Deployment, hardware, and compliance posture.
Run it where your accreditation lives, on the peripherals paper records management depends on.
On-premises
Standard for facilities with classified holdings or operational requirements that preclude cloud storage. Runs on customer-managed infrastructure.
Agency cloud
The agency's own GovCloud or Azure Government tenant. RMA iQ deploys into your existing accreditation boundary.
Feith FedRAMP cloud
FedRAMP-authorized SaaS, fully managed by Feith. Agencies without their own cloud accreditation issue an Authority to Use that inherits Feith's FedRAMP Moderate authorization.
- NARA UERM
- Aligned
- FedRAMP
- Moderate authorization · 2025
- DoD IL
- ATOs up to IL7 (TS/SCI); IL-6 and IL7 in customer-managed classified deployments
- Section 508
- Current
- NIST SP 800-53
- Moderate baseline, applied
- PKI / CAC
- Supported
- SSO
- LDAP · Active Directory · SAML · OIDC
RMA iQ drives the peripheral set paper records management depends on. TWAIN-compatible production scanners for batch ingestion at facility scale. Standard barcode label printers driven from the catalog on standard label stock. Handheld barcode scanners for floor custodians, with barcode check-in and check-out from a mobile device through the mobile portal.
One discipline, every paper program.
Paper records management is never one job, but the discipline underneath stays the same.
It looks different in a civilian digitization push, a classified vault, a county clerk's office, and a nuclear operator's archive.
Records staff working active holdings: bound ledgers, lateral files, barcoded containers. RMA iQ brings these holdings under one catalog and one retention schedule.
Federal agency with an active digitization mandate
The situation
A records officer has nine months left on a NARA exception and 12,000 cubic feet of legacy paper still to digitize. The exception requires monthly progress reporting and a tamper-evident audit trail on every record while it stays on paper. Today that runs on a spreadsheet and a borrowed label printer.
What RMA iQ does
RMA iQ catalogs the legacy holdings against the same retention schedule the digitized records will inherit. The mobile portal drives the daily floor work, with barcode check-in and check-out from a handheld device. RMA iQ reporting produces NARA's monthly numbers without manual compilation. As records digitize, they link to their physical originals and the chain of custody persists across the conversion.
catalogbarcodecustodydigitizationprogress reporting
Defense organization with classified holdings
The situation
A defense component holds paper that cannot leave the facility and, in some cases, cannot be digitized at all. The compartment requirements are tighter than its standard records system supports. An IG inspection is 90 days out and wants a clean accounting of every record's custody chain over the prior year.
What RMA iQ does
RMA iQ deploys on-premises behind the component's accreditation boundary at IL-6, up to IL7 (TS/SCI). The custody chain is reconstructable per record, per container, per location, and per individual over any time window. The IG receives exports that demonstrate compliance without exposing record content.
on-premclassified posturecustody historyIG export
State or county records office
The situation
A county clerk holds 70 years of land records, marriage records, court filings, and certified documents. Public records requests arrive daily and the state preservation board wants demonstrable retention compliance. The current system is a 1990s electronic index over the physical files, with no enforced retention and no custody history.
What RMA iQ does
RMA iQ replaces the old index with a current catalog, applies the state-mandated retention schedules per record type, and produces FOIA-equivalent responses that draw from paper and digital holdings together. The board receives current-year compliance reports without the clerk's office building them by hand.
catalog modernizationretention schedulesmulti-substrate responsecompliance reporting
Energy operator under nuclear records retention
The situation
A nuclear operator maintains plant records, signed procedures, and operating logs with retention measured in plant-life-plus-X years. NRC inspections run on a regular cadence. Some records exist only on paper because the operator's qualification process for digital equivalents is itself a multi-year program.
What RMA iQ does
RMA iQ catalogs the long-retention paper holdings under NRC-aligned schedules, supports tamper-evident logging at the level the regulator expects, and provides a digitization path that respects the operator's procedural qualification timeline rather than forcing it.
long retentionregulated industrytamper-evident loggingoptional digitization
Bring your paper into the same records architecture as everything else.
FedRAMP Moderate Authorized · NARA UERM aligned · DoDM 8180.01 · Section 508 · ATOs up to IL7 (TS/SCI) · Made in America · Fort Washington, PA
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Related: RMA iQ overview · Records in M365 · Records in Google · Integrations & Capture