Data & Document Management For Your Industry
Personnel Records
Keeping employee records accurate and up to date is essential for a business, especially when considering all state and federal filing requirements for employee taxes. Information typically retained includes: hiring (resume, offer letter, etc.) and onboarding documentation, promotion, demotion, transfer, layoff or termination documents, status as to whether the employees was exempt or non-exempt, rates of pay and salary history, training records, job descriptions, employee handbook acknowledgments, performance reviews and any disciplinary actions taken against the employee.
Payroll Reports
Per federal law, entities should retain payroll records for three years and payroll tax records, such as unemployment taxes, for four years. Some states, such as New York, and agencies, such as ERISA (governing private retirement and health plans), require that records be kept for six years. For many employers, these record keeping requirements can become rather overwhelming to manage, requiring added office space and storage.
Accounts Payable
Ideally, accounts payable records should be retained for at least seven years. It is a good idea for the retention period to be extended if it can be accomplished without adding to business expenses. The basic accounts payable cycle includes three significant documents – purchase orders (PO), receiving reports (or goods receipt), and vendor invoices.
Energy & Utilities
Utility companies have a large burden when it comes to records management. These companies manage large volumes of sensitive data and must do so while maintaining compliance with numerous federal regulations.
Engineering Drawings
It is recommended that construction documents be retained for at least seven years past the date of substantial completion for projects where the involvement of the engineer is limited. On projects where the engineer’s involvement was significant, documents should be retained until the end of the statute of repose (i.e., statute of limitations) which varies by state.
Tax Records
Tax records should be kept for three years from the date of the original return filing, or two years from the date the taxes were paid, whichever is later, if a claim for credit or refund was submitted after you file your return. Records should be kept for seven years if an entity files a claim for a loss from worthless securities or bad debt deduction. Typically, the IRS can come after a business for failing to report income for up to six years after a filing if the amount is greater than 25% of the business's gross income. As for an individual, if a business filed for a deduction for a bad debt or worthless security, the IRS suggests keeping the supporting tax records for
seven years.