In 2009, the Swedish National Archive introduced a new way of maintaining and cataloguing documents within the archives, which all national governments were to implement within four years. But for the local gov- ernments it was voluntary and, moreover, they did not have the same requirements to fulfil the guidelines that the National Archives put forward. The result was completely different archival descriptions.  The aim of this investigation is to examine whether formation of a functional classification structure can be streamlined, with the goal of helping the municipalities and counties succeed in developing an efficient, concise and functioning archival description. This search is based on a systematic document analysis, in which studied and revised seven municipalities and six counties in Sweden.  Certain aspects recur in all archive descriptions that were included in the study, such as the municipalities' and counties' function for the local library organisations and promoting local culture. Differences are visible in the structure of the archival descriptions and the individual unique functions developed to suit the local government.  The differences between archive descriptions are due to three main factors: the organizational structure, the archivist’s experience and the financial conditions. All three aspects affect the work to produce a functional clas- sification in different ways.  The discussion is based on Terry Eastwood's and John Robert's archive theory regarding the archivist's re- sponsibility and the focus on keeping the original in the archive. In order to maintain the principle of provenance. This theory was used in the study in order to get an idea of whether a standardized functional classification is possible, which we concluded that it is and desirable. Mainly, because it creates an overall perspective of the archive.