Dealing with disciplinary records
No matter the size of your organisation or your industry, you need to stay on top of your business record keeping. Whether you operate a small business or large enterprise, any data that relates to your operations, such as tax, financial, legal, medical, insurance, or employment information must be properly maintained – or your company risks penalties from government agencies.
Depending on the type of documentation, there are different regulations for how long to maintain this paperwork – but in general the minimum should be six years.
Of course, business records retention can add a lot to your plate in addition to daily operations. Luckily much of your paperwork can be stored electronically – as long as you have a sufficient backup plan in the event that records are lost or deleted accidentally.
Let us give you a rundown of the most important business records retention rules.
- PAYE records: Accurate PAYE (Pay As You Earn) records — all payments made to employees, deductions made for income tax, national insurance, and student loan payments, statutory payments — must be kept for minimum of three years.
- Sales and takings: Your business must also file all till rolls, sales invoices, bank statements, paying-in slips and accounting records. You must also include cash receipts. This ensures that you have accurate information regarding what is owed to your business, as well as your total income for tax purposes.
- Purchases and expenses: It’s also important to keep records of all your accounting records including cash purchases. Examples of this include your bank and credit card statements, receipts, cheque book stubs, and purchase invoices. In addition, keep a record of your travel expenses: rental cars, mileage records for personal vehicles, flights, etc.
- Employee benefits: Keep on file records of employee benefits. For example, this may include statutory parental leave or pay, sick pay, jobseeker’s allowance, and social security benefits.
Depending on how your company is registered, you may have to maintain additional records or specific records. A few examples below:
- Limited company: To comply with the Companies Act, all accounting and business records must be kept. This includes bank statements, account books, purchase and sales information, as well as paying-in slips. Once you have this information you can easily calculate how much corporation tax you either must pay or reclaim.
- VAT- registered company: All VAT-registered companies must keep track of all of VAT accounts, including sales and purchase invoices. It is also important to include your import/export documents because by law you must be able to accurately illustrate your VAT inputs and outputs.
- Construction Industry Scheme (CIS) records: If you’re a CIS-registered contractor, by law your organisation must maintain accurate and full records of payments made, deductions taken, and materials purchased by subcontractors. These records must be maintained for at least three years, so you can calculate your CIS deductions for your tax returns.
Of course, your company may want to keep additional records that are relevant to your business. Access Records Management can assist you with determining your organisation’s needs and finding the best system for you.
By using a records management service, you can benefit from additional office space – the fewer documents you store in-house, the more room you have for other purposes – a less strenuous business records keeping burden (no more searching for records or manually managing them), and a responsive, intelligent, expert and above all, local service: one that isn’t off the shelf, but designed to meet your company’s specific requirements.
Want to know more about business records keepingand how your business can improve their records management? Speak to one of our experts today.
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