Supervisory Controls and Records

Learn the supervisory-control, books-and-records, and record-retention framework tested in the fifth Series 4 function.

The fifth Series 4 chapter covers the internal systems that support options supervision. This includes written supervisory procedures, supervisory controls, written options programs, books and records, and options-specific record-retention requirements. The options principal needs these controls because account, trading, and communications review all fail if the firm cannot prove what it did.

Read this chapter as the process-and-evidence layer of the options business. Start with supervisory controls, then move into the records the firm must preserve to show those controls actually operated.

In this section

Revised on Thursday, April 23, 2026