Store your business’ essential documents securely offsite to save space and ensure compliance.
Protect your business’s digital media in a secure, climate-controlled vault.
Secure your essential records like wills, evidence, trusts, and legal documents in our vault.
Preserve the safety and integrity of biological samples, pathology slides, and critical medical materials with secure, climate-controlled storage.
Easily manage and track your inventory online with Corodata’s secure and user-friendly Client Portal.
Access your physical documents digitally with Corodata’s Scan on Demand service. Deliver secure, on-request scans directly to your device.
Digitize large quantities of documents efficiently with Corodata’s High Volume Scanning. Ensure quick, secure, and accurate conversion to digital files.
Securely access your digital and scanned documents anytime from your desktop, tablet, or phone with CoroVault.
Secure offsite storage for critical documents, ensuring space savings and compliance.
Prevent data breaches with certified hard drive destruction, fully wiping data and ensuring compliance.
Host a shred event to provide secure shredding services to your community at a central location with our mobile shred truck.
Stay informed with the latest records management tips, industry news, and expert insights.
Unlock free exclusive ebooks, templates, and checklists to streamline your business operations.
Access free on-demand webinars to master Corodata’s client portal.
This guide reveals exactly which business records to keep and for how long.
Safeguard your business operations and speed up recovery during a crisis by completing this disaster recovery plan.
Easily maintain HIPAA compliance with our comprehensive checklist.
Since 1948, we have delivered secure records management solutions to help businesses confidently protect and manage their information.
Understanding the business record retention guidelines and how long you should keep certain important documents is crucial.
Accumulating records and documents can pose a dilemma for businesses, as it can be difficult to determine how long to retain them before disposing of them. However, keeping records for too long can lead to cluttered spaces and excessive storage expenses, while disposing of them too soon may expose legal and financial risks.
Several acts, agencies, and laws define federal digital and paper record retention requirements. Generally, the rule under federal data and document retention guidelines for businesses is that all documents must be stored (in years):
Working with an accountant, lawyer, or data retention consultant should be a standard part of your workflow before shredding paper or destroying hard drives. The cost of non-compliance can be high, with financial penalties running into the millions.
So, at the federal level, which areas do you need to pay attention to?
Your state and local government may also have its own business record retention guidelines that are stricter than their federal equivalents. In this case, the longer period always applies.
Note that the federal government may not handle some areas requiring record retention. For example, the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) has its own standards for maintaining PCI compliance.
File retention requirements for businesses are split into different series. Here is a breakdown of business record retention guidelines for small businesses and large corporations by area:
In many cases, the same data retention guidelines applying to businesses also apply to individuals. For example, IRS retention guidelines do not change based on whether you are discussing a business or personal tax return. Below is a breakdown of the record retention guidelines for individuals:
These are some of the examples of different documents you may have at home. Note that some accountants and lawyers may suggest you keep certain types of documents forever.
As with business document retention guidelines, retention periods remain the same for physical and digital documents.
Once you have determined the required length of time to store information, you now need to do it in a way that allows flexibility. In the arena of Retention Scheduling, the fundamental goal is to get control of the information in a way that you can revise the plan for whatever comes your way, including a litigation hold.
Record retention is a legal requirement and a beneficial endeavor to improve your business’s operations. Streamlining information retention allows easy access to records, prevents loss, and secures your operation against data breaches.
Legal requirements are always a priority. For example, your accounting record retention guidelines will direct how such data must be stored and how long to keep records for.
But internal record retention guidelines must be designed to streamline your business’s processes and workflows. With more data available than ever, it is easy for data to become a drag on your growth.
Tracking the nature or type of information within a particular file (electronic or paper), box, or tape is the messy part of retention schedules. Destruction without a firm grasp of these details is more than risky, and it may even be criminal. Even if it is just basic information like Box 1, AP 2011, North American Div.
Every business will have its own setup for categorizing and segmenting its physical or digital data. Create your own convention for naming and recording each piece of data so that it can be easily found and secured.
Managing multiple variables is best done with a database, not a log or spreadsheet, if you can avoid it. You will want to query multiple features, flag items for Litigation Hold, etc… (Corodata offers this tool free to our clients.)
Utilizing databases allows your business to easily search for, identify, and categorize data according to your internal guidelines. Some of the advantages of working within a database include the following:
Businesses can benefit from consultants who can discuss issues like IRS record retention guidelines for employers. Hiring a professional accountant to consult on matters like banking records retention guidelines provides insights into how you can store and secure vital documentation relevant to your situation. Your legal counsel should also have the skills and know-how to provide targeted suggestions for your organization.
Ultimately, record retention is a team effort requiring stakeholder buy-in across your organization.
Federal record retention guidelines dictate more than just how long to keep business records. As a business owner, you are also responsible for securing that data and protecting consumer privacy.
For example, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) pertains to companies handling Protected Health Information (PHI). All companies within the healthcare sector must achieve and maintain HIPAA compliance.
The days of throwing employee records into a filing cabinet in the corner are long gone. Employee record retention guidelines state that businesses must take all reasonable steps to protect the exclusivity of the information within.
Archiving platforms enable you to create custom record retention policies and automate many of the standard retention processes.
Saving time and effort enables you to redirect your human capital to other critical aspects of your business. Take advantage of record archiving solutions offering robust search functionality and built-in security features.
Once you are ready to implement a schedule, begin with the end in mind – when should the document be destroyed? Record it now, and plan to get it done on schedule. You should always double-check prior to shredding/destruction, but you are now managing a plan, not just reacting.
Document destruction also has its own rules and regulations. For example, under payroll record retention guidelines, you cannot throw a folder of physical documents into the dumpster outside your office.
Secure shredding and destruction are crucial for preventing data security and privacy guidelines. With the help of a professional data destruction service by your side, you have everything you need to ensure total ongoing compliance.
Please note that this information should only be used as a guide. You should consult with your legal team and insurance carrier when establishing a records retention policy. Your records retention policy should be updated annually as compliance regulations and requirements change.
Download and save our "Business Retention Schedule Guideline" to ensure you meet government mandates and have your employees knowledgeable of what records to store and for how long.