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Retention Guide

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Recordkeeping Guide for Businesses

Keep for 1 Year

• Bank reconciliations
• Correspondence with customers or vendors
• Duplicate deposit slips
• Receiving sheets
• Requisitions

Keep for 3 Years

• General correspondence
• Bank statements & deposit slips
• Employment applications
• Expired insurance policies
• Internal reports, including internal audit reports
• Monthly trial balances
• Petty cash vouchers
• Physical inventory tags
• Purchase orders

Keep for 7 Years

• Accident reports and claims for settled cases
• Accounts payable ledgers and schedules
• Accounts receivable ledgers and schedules
• Canceled checks (general, payroll, payroll taxes)
• Employee personnel records (after termination)
• Expired contracts and leases
• Expense analysis and expense distribution schedules
• Inventories of products, materials and supplies
• Invoices to customers or from vendors
• Notes receivable ledgers and schedules
• Expired option records
• Payroll records and summaries, including payment to pensioners
• Plant cost ledgers
• Purchasing department copies of purchase orders
• Sales records, safety records
• Canceled stock and bond certificates
• Subsidiary ledgers
• Tax returns, worksheets, revenue agents’ reports and other related documents
• Time books
• Voucher register and schedules
• Voucher for payments to vendors, employees, etc.

Keep Permanently

• Articles of incorporation, bylaws, partnership agreements
• Audit reports of accountants
• Cash books, charts of accounts
• Canceled checks (fixed assets or income taxes)
• Capital stock and bond records
• Contracts and leases still in effect
• Correspondence, legal and tax related
• Mortgages, bills of sale, deeds
• Depreciation schedules
• Financial statements (end of year)
• General, private ledgers & end of year trial balances
• Insurance records, current accident reports, claims, policies
• Sales, cash receipts and disbursements journals, etc.
• Minute books of directors and stockholders
• Retirement plan records
• Patents, copyrights, and trademark registration
• Property appraisals by outside appraisers
• Property records