When OSHA shows up, the first “test” usually isn’t your machine guarding program or your fall protection plan.
It’s a document request.
An inspector asks for your injury and illness records (OSHA 300/300A/301) and, very often, proof your people were trained. In that moment, a solid safety program can still feel shaky—because the real question becomes: Can you produce clean, consistent, defensible records fast?
If the OSHA 300 Log lives in a spreadsheet, the 300A is a PDF somewhere, incident details are split between HR and the field, and toolbox talks are on paper sign-in sheets… audit day becomes a scavenger hunt. And scavenger hunts create mistakes—mistakes that can turn into citations, penalties, and a lot of unwanted attention.
Let’s walk through what “accurate OSHA records” actually means in 2026, why it lowers your risk, and how to fix the weak links that cause recordkeeping violations in the first place.
Accurate records do two things at once:
And in 2026, accuracy matters for another reason: your Form 300A data can influence inspection targeting. OSHA’s Site-Specific Targeting (SST) program uses submitted 300A information to generate inspection lists—and that includes not only high-rate establishments, but also low-rate samples to verify data quality and non-responders to discourage skipping submissions.
So even if you’re proud of your safety performance (and you should be), recordkeeping still needs to be airtight.
Accuracy is more than “we filled out the forms.”
It means your records are:
Here’s the cadence most teams need to build around:
If your process depends on someone remembering these dates, you’re one busy week away from a preventable compliance problem.
OSHA requires that you retain OSHA 300/300A/301 records for five years and update the stored OSHA 300 Log during that period if you discover new recordable cases or if classifications change.
This is one of the most common “quiet gaps” for multi-site teams: the year closes, the summary gets posted, and everyone moves on—until you realize you’re supposed to keep the prior years clean and updated, too.
Most recordkeeping violations aren’t intentional. They happen because the recordkeeping decision points are genuinely tricky—or the information arrives late and incomplete from the field.
Here are the big ones.
A lot of recordkeeping confusion starts with one question:
Was it first aid—or did it become medical treatment?
OSHA’s recordkeeping rule outlines general recording criteria and discusses how “medical treatment beyond first aid” is recordable. OSHA has also provided enforcement guidance emphasizing that first aid is a defined list, and treatments outside that list are considered medical treatment.
Practical fix: Standardize how incidents are captured from day one (what happened, what care was provided, what restrictions occurred), and make sure your recordkeeper has enough detail to classify correctly—without guessing.
It’s easy to miss a deadline when recordkeeping is treated like a once-a-year paperwork event.
Practical fix: Put those dates into a repeatable compliance calendar and build a quick internal “closeout” checklist: reconcile totals, get executive certification, post 300A, submit in ITA (if required), file documentation.
Multi-site employers get burned by fragmentation:
Even if each piece exists, you can’t prove it fast, and inconsistency creeps in.
Practical fix: Centralize the audit trail—or at minimum, standardize the workflow so every site reports incidents and training the same way.
Let’s be blunt: recordkeeping isn’t just “admin.”
OSHA’s SST program uses Form 300A data to build inspection lists, and it includes mechanisms specifically aimed at checking data reliability, not just chasing the highest injury rates.
That’s why accuracy is its own form of risk management. If your 300A data is inconsistent, incomplete, or late, you’re increasing your odds of becoming a “verify the data” target.
Safety leaders often have a pretty clean story about training… until they have to prove it.
And the research is clear that training can improve safety behaviors—especially when it’s engaging and includes practice and interaction.
But here’s the gap OSHA inspections expose: you can’t benefit from training you can’t verify.
Common failure points:
If you’re managing multiple sites, your goal should be simple:
One place to answer: who was trained, on what, when, and by whom—plus any field verification that proves the learning stuck.
That’s the difference between “we think we’re covered” and “here’s the evidence.”
Use this quick checklist quarterly (and again in January/February):
If you can’t confidently check these boxes, you’ve found your next best improvement.
Violations can include failing to record qualifying cases, incorrect classifications, missing required forms, failing to post the 300A on time, not retaining/updating logs for five years, or failing to submit required data electronically when covered.
You must post the OSHA 300A annual summary no later than February 1 and keep it posted through April 30 at each establishment.
Yes. Employers must complete the 300A summary and post it in the required window even if there were no recordable cases.
For covered establishments, OSHA collects submissions during the January 2–March 2 window, with a March 2 deadline.
Yes. OSHA’s SST program uses 300A data for inspection targeting and includes low-rate samples and non-responders as part of its approach to verifying data quality.
OSHA requires retaining these records for five years after the end of the covered year, and updating the stored OSHA 300 Log during that period if new cases or classification changes are discovered.
Training is a core safety control, and evidence reviews find training improves safety behaviors—especially when it’s engaging and practice-based. If documentation is scattered, it’s harder to prove training occurred consistently across sites.
Accurate OSHA records reduce fines and violations because they eliminate the problems inspectors can cite quickly: mismatched totals, missed posting windows, missed submission deadlines, incorrect classifications, and missing proof that training happened.
In 2026, the best approach is to treat recordkeeping like a system—not a spreadsheet. Build a repeatable cycle around posting and submission dates, keep your five-year logs updated, and connect training proof (online + in-person + toolbox talks) into one defensible trail.
If you want to make that easier across multiple sites, Ving helps you deliver online training and capture in-person training and toolbox talks in the same system—so when the first audit question comes (“Who was trained, on what, when?”), you can answer it in minutes, not days.