What provides a reference trail when a document is located elsewhere?

A cross-reference sheet is designed specifically to serve as a reference trail by providing additional context or locating information for documents that may be stored in different locations. It allows users to easily find related documents by connecting them to their references or identifiers. This is particularly useful in records management, where documents can be scattered across various formats or locations.

While indexing systems help in organizing and categorizing documents, and document archives refer to the physical storage of documents, neither directly offers a reference trail in the manner that a cross-reference sheet does. Logbooks can track information but do not specifically highlight the connections between different documents as effectively as a cross-reference sheet does. Therefore, the cross-reference sheet is the most suitable tool for creating a clear trail for document retrieval across various sources.