Spring cleaning time..or how long should I keep records?
After a long winter, spring energizes with its warmer days.
If you notice lots of paperword has accumulated over the winter, it's time to consider how long you should keep records. As a matter of fact, many clients call us on this very topic.
We have an excellent guide on our web site. When you leave this blog, look at the main page for the tab labeled "Tax Center". There is a "Record Retention Guide" included in the information which will provide you with some much needed information.
I plan to scan some records and save to backup media which can be accessed in the future. While it's okay to scan and keep the records on your home PC, our technical team has found PC's may not be the best place for permanent storage. (PC's do crash, data becomes corrupt, laptops get stolen or abused by frequent moving, or other errors create loss of records.)
Keep in mind, in the case of an audit, you will need to be able to produce paper documents. Also if you are relying on all of your records to be maintained by an outside document management program, make sure they will provide access to your records up to 7 years.
If this looks like a big task for you, just wait until one of those rainy spring days for the task. Give us a call if you want further advice on this topic.
