With all the documents that come with running a business, it’s important to stay organized and get rid of all the clutter. You also don’t want to accidentally lose anything important. Here are the essential business records to keep.
LEGAL DOCUMENTS
There are many legal documents that a business can accumulate over the years. It’s incredibly important that you keep all these documents stored somewhere safe in your office. Some legal documentation for your business that you will need to hold on can help you provide proof down the line.
ACCOUNTING RECORDS
It’s also important that you keep an eye on your business’s financials over the years. That’s why you will want to hold onto accounting records as well. These accounting records include crucial business information such as income, expenses, and equity.
BANK ACCOUNT STATEMENTS
You will typically receive a statement from your bank each month that will show you all the different transactions you made with your checking, savings, and credit card accounts. Your bank account statements are another essential business record to keep because it allows you to see trends and find potential mistakes.
PERMITS AND LICENSES
Additionally, there are also different permits and licenses that you certainly need to store away in a safe place. Permits and licenses are necessary to have so you can prove you meet specific standards required within your industry.
INSURANCE DOCUMENTS
Because there is a chance that an accident might occur, whether its damage from a fire or other incidents, you need protection. Having insurance is one thing, but having the documents will help you follow through if you need to recount your losses.
BUSINESS-RELATED RECEIPTS
For people who work at home, you can use items need for work, such as computers, as well as work-related travel expenses for tax write-offs. However, the only way you can get the taxes excluded is if you keep the receipt for the transactions you make.
EMPLOYEE DOCUMENTS
An employee file and other employee-related documents such as performance and discipline-related documents are required to be kept for a set number of years. These types of records need to be not only kept, but they must be kept confidential. Only those who have a legitimate business reason can see these records and they must keep the contents confidential due to the sensitive nature of the content. Other records such as employee payroll and benefit records should also be kept according to current government regulations.
SAFETY-RELATED RECORDS
The Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) requires that certain records such as injury and illness, accident investigations, training records, etc., be kept for a period of time. Failure to retain these records could result in fines if audited.
TAX RECORDS
A final record that you need to keep also relates to your taxes. There are certain situations when an accountant or the IRS may need to refer to previous tax returns, so keep them handy for a few years. You should also hang on to employee tax records as well.
While you can store a lot of these documents digitally, when you do have physical documents, you need to keep everything organized. A great way to do this is by using color coding labels. ChromaLabel also has book binding repair that can prove helpful if you have to keep older documents.
Update from April 2021
Staying organized is important, especially when dealing with legal documents! Colored dot stickers, stars, and rectangles can help organize your files. You can also create custom labels to personalize to your business files.
