The next section of the Missouri preneed records rule provides the funeral home latitude to maintain records in either a hard paper copy or an electronic format, but so long as the records are provided to the State Board in a timely manner:
All records required to be maintained by a seller may be maintained in paper or electronic or a combination of paper and electronic formats, but shall be maintained in a manner such that the required information may be retrieved and provided to the board in a timely manner, upon request in accordance with the statutes and regulations governing the board.
Some funeral homes have not yet adopted the paperless office concept. We have such clients, who struggle with Excel spreadsheets and PDF documents. The proposed regulation is acknowledging those types of sellers, but warning that reliance on paper reports will still require that they be able to find, copy and deliver those reports to the State Board within a timely manner (generally within 30 days of request).