How Long Should you Retain a Document!

Many people have boxes of bank statements and paid bills or tax returns of which they have no clue how long they should keep. This can be a tough factor to figure out. When can you be sure that the document is of no value and you can get rid of it? The internal revenue service assures that the duration of time you should keep any document depends on the action and the expense or event which the document records. Documents which cover the support of an item of income or deductions on a tax return need to be kept until the period of limitation for that return runs out. The duration for tax related documents generally tends to be about three years but there are exceptions. You need to make sure the duration by checking with the proper authorities.

Documents to be kept for longer periods of time

Tax returns need to be maintained indefinitely but the documentation’s importance varies. Property owning documents and investments need to be kept for as long as you own the asset and then seven years after that. This is the general duration for which the records retention should be done. These documents can include everything from real estate closing statements to mortgage documents to broker statements etc.

You need to keep the documents for at least a period of seven years due to the length of statute of limitation for filling lawsuits. Stock records and duration of meetings for board of directors and stockholders need to be kept for an indefinite period due to the fact that they may be called on again for reference or cross checking in the future. Annual financial statements and summaries of the transactions must also be kept indefinitely but vendor or customer invoices can be destroyed after seven years. Leases also need to be kept a for duration of seven years after the agreed time period is over.

Keeping documents in a digital format

Saving space by keeping all these documents in the digital format is a great way to ensure that you have a steady record and you do not lose any vital documents. Keeping the documents digitally also ensures that you have access to them any time you want. It also ensures that you never lose a document. Make sure that you keep a back up of the disk and the digital copies though as that will help in case of a disk crash. These are some of the ways through which keeping a digital record of your documents can help you. Also they save up a lot of headache when you are looking for a particular document. As long as you keep the documents in a specified and organized way you can always go through a search to find the documents which you will need. This will help greatly in saving time. Records retention schedule is a simple method if you know how to go about it. Visit Irch.com for more details.

About The Author

Sarah Jones is an expert on business data management and records maintenance who also likes to write many interesting articles and blogs, helping enterprises in coming up with the best business record retention schedule and document preservation guidelines. She recommends IRCH.com as the best source of information on the subject.

IRCH provides market-leading products and services enabling customers to reduce costs and risks through implementing legally-defensible records retention and destruction practices.