Answer
Retention requirements are rarely uniform across document types, so the software needs to support different schedules for different record classes rather than one blanket policy, seven years for financial records, a different clock for HR files depending on state requirements, and indefinite hold for anything under active litigation. Buyers should confirm the platform can apply a legal hold that overrides normal retention and expiration on specific documents without manual intervention, since missing that capability during an actual legal matter is a serious exposure.
Search quality should be tested two ways: metadata search against the index fields the business actually uses, like invoice number or customer account, and full-text search across scanned or OCR'd content when that matters for the record type. Retrieval speed under real volume is worth confirming directly, since a repository that performs well with a few thousand test documents can slow down noticeably once it holds years of production history.
On compliance, buyers should ask the vendor to name the specific regulations the product has been used to satisfy for similar customers, rather than accepting a generic compliance claim, and should confirm whether audit reports proving retention and access control can be generated on demand instead of assembled by hand when an auditor asks.