The Salvation Army retains its own papers, which consist of records relating to administration, work in United Kingdom and overseas, corps, social service and other centres and members. The material held by the SA is too diverse to be able to provide a concise listing of different types of records. The archives were not created by a systematic approach to records management, but by an almost random accumulation of historic records and papers. Much of the archive material is not yet fully documented and classified. A good starting point is the online catalogue of the Archives hosted on the NRA website. The Salvation Army Archivist however warns that this online catalogue "was produced as an introductory guide to some of the records available in SA's archives, although the file descriptions are not always a reliable indication of the contents, and researchers may be misled into thinking that files will be relevant to their research, when in fact they prove to be disappointing". There are other unpublished listings and card catalogues available for reference in the archives.

The UK Web Archiving Consortium is archiving the website on a regular basis.

The collection is open to visiting researchers by appointment, Tue-Thu 9.30am-3.30pm. There are restrictions on accessing some recent or confidential files. A fee may be payable.

A list is available from the NRA; see also the online catalogue) The Heritage Centre has a variety of lists, catalogues, indexes and databases, mainly to help SA staff to find material in the library and archives. Most catalogues and finding aids are not available to visiting researchers, but are used primarily by SA staff who give practical help with locating and retrieving suitable material.

Researchers might also found interesting documents in the papers of local branches of the Salvation Army. Several branches are listed on the NRA website. See for example a online catalogue of the records of the Holyhead (Anglesey) branch (online catalogue). There's also extensive records for the Mothers' Hospital of the Salvation Army, Hackney (online catalogue). Some photographs from the Salvation Army can also be found in Greater Manchester County Record Office (online catalogue).