Documentation standards
Plain-language standards for essential organizational records, including vendors, access references, continuity, incident notes, and review routines.
Explore standardsEarly public draft
Small Organization Records Frameworks for small organizations.
A practical public framework for documenting responsibilities, vendors, access references, continuity notes, incident timelines, and review routines.
This project is being developed as an open standards and templates library. The materials are provided as general educational resources and are not legal, tax, financial, insurance, cybersecurity, compliance, or incident-response advice.
Purpose
Helping organizations document what matters.
Many small organizations rely on memory, informal habits, scattered accounts, and one or two key people who know how everything works. Small Organization Records Framework provides plain-language records and templates that help make essential information easier to understand, review, and hand off.
Free templates
Download practical templates for common documentation needs. Templates are intended to be free public resources.
View templatesLearn the basics
Introductory guides explaining organizational documentation, access references, review routines, and safe recordkeeping habits.
Start learningFramework areas
The first standards focus on practical operational clarity.
The framework begins with records that many small organizations need, regardless of industry or location.
Access References
Document where access is managed without recording passwords, API keys, recovery codes, or other secret values.
Read standardVendor Inventory
Maintain a clear list of vendors, services, subscriptions, tools, and outside relationships the organization depends on.
Read standardResponsibility Records
Clarify who owns, maintains, reviews, and supports important records, services, vendors, and processes.
Read standardContinuity Notes
Preserve essential context if a founder, owner, maintainer, director, or key person becomes unavailable.
Read standardIncident Timeline
Record neutral timeline notes during outages, disruptions, vendor issues, access problems, or operational incidents.
Read standardReview Routines
Keep documentation useful through simple, realistic review habits that match the organization’s size and capacity.
Read standardOpen resources
Templates should help without becoming a barrier.
The project is being built around open standards and freely available templates. The goal is to help organizations begin documenting essential information without needing a paid product, account, or subscription.
The templates are intended to be downloadable public resources. The project name, logo, and official identity are separate from the open content license.