A records management system classifies records according to a file plan. Record are declared, and then classified. Some records have in initially indeterminate classification and classification is deferred, either by request or due to a lack of sufficient information to classify the record according to the file plan. Unclassified records are placed into a temporary container. At some time while in the temporary container a classification event occurs with a given record which allows the records management system to classify the record and place it into a container corresponding to its classification.