What records a youth sports league should keep

Most leagues ask what they should keep. The more useful question is what they would have to explain if it leaked.

A spreadsheet of children's names, dates of birth, home addresses, parents' phone numbers and medical conditions is a serious thing to hold. It is worth holding when you need it, and it is pure liability when you do not.

Financial records

Who paid what, when, and what was refunded. These are the records an accountant, an auditor or a tax authority may ask about, and the ones with a genuine retention period behind them. Ask what yours is.

Signed waivers and consents

Keep these longer than feels necessary. A claim relating to a minor can surface years later, sometimes after that child reaches adulthood, which is exactly the situation the document exists for. Your insurer likely has a view; get it in writing.

Incident reports

Anything written down about an injury or a safeguarding concern. If you are not currently writing these down, that is a bigger gap than any retention policy.

A roster of who played

Names and teams, season by season. Small, useful for eligibility questions and end of season awards, and it carries far less than a full registration export does.

Medical details, once the season is over

You collected an allergy list so a coach could act on it in August. In February it protects nobody and is the most sensitive thing in your files. Next season collects it again, current rather than a year stale.

Uploaded documents you never actually checked

Birth certificates and physicals nobody reviewed are risk you took on for no benefit. Either check them and record that you did, or stop asking for them.

Old exports

The spreadsheet in somebody's downloads folder is the copy nobody is protecting. It has no access control, it gets forwarded, and it survives the volunteer leaving. These are the most likely source of a leak and the easiest to remove.

Access that outlived its reason

Not a record, but it belongs on this list. Last season's administrator can still see everything until somebody removes them. See adding organization admins.

The cheapest way to hold less is not to ask. Every question on your registration form becomes a column you are responsible for, so the honest test for each one is whether somebody will act on the answer.

See what to collect on a registration form.

• Settle the money, then export the financial position for the season.
• Export a plain roster of who played on which team.
• Confirm signed waivers are where you expect them.
• Delete uploaded documents the season needed and the next one will ask for again.
• Delete old exports from your own machine, which is the step everybody skips.
• Review who still has administrator access.
• Archive the program.

See how to end a season for the mechanics, and exporting your data for the exports.