{"id":1469,"date":"2019-01-10T16:56:30","date_gmt":"2019-01-10T21:56:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/?p=1469"},"modified":"2019-01-10T16:56:48","modified_gmt":"2019-01-10T21:56:48","slug":"cleaning-out-the-office-closet-a-guide-to-how-long-to-keep-tax-records-and-other-important-documents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/cleaning-out-the-office-closet-a-guide-to-how-long-to-keep-tax-records-and-other-important-documents\/","title":{"rendered":"Cleaning out the (Office) Closet: A Guide to How Long to Keep Tax Records and Other Important Documents"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Is your office getting cluttered up with old paperwork? Do you have employee files from the 90s that you would like to get rid of?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;re wondering how long to keep tax records and employee information, this article&#8217;s for you. We&#8217;ll give you the inside scoop on how long to keep documents and help you get started clearing out your office.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How Long to Hold Onto Bank Statements?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Whether you&#8217;re in the process of  or managing an existing one, you&#8217;ll need to keep your bank statements. But how many years should you hold on to them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In general, you should hold onto annual bank statements for seven years. Online banking has progressed to the point that your bank can print out any information you need.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can shred your monthly bank statements after one year, however.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How Long to Retain Employee Information?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;re wondering how long to keep documents pertaining to your employees, the answer is also seven years. If there&#8217;s been a workers&#8217; compensation claim, you should hold onto that employee&#8217;s information for 10 years.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You might be surprised to learn that you should retain job applications for three years, even if you don&#8217;t hire that person.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The good news is that you can scan paperwork into your computer system so you don&#8217;t have to deal with office clutter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;re dealing with serious clutter, however, don&#8217;t stress. Take a weekend day to sort, clean, and organize. You can get more cleaning tips from <a href=\"https:\/\/altitudehauling.com\/best-practices-keep-when-cleaning-attic\/\">this site<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How Long to Keep Tax Records?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>There are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.inc.com\/leigh-buchanan\/us-entrepreneurship-reaches-record-highs.html\">more than 25 million<\/a> entrepreneurs in the United States, and they all have the same burning question. How long do you need to keep tax returns?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The IRS recommends that you keep your tax returns for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/businesses\/small-businesses-self-employed\/irs-audits#far-back\">at least three years<\/a>, but preferably seven. They strive to do their audits in a timely fashion, but they will go back more than three years if they find a major error.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Talk to your accountant about the potential for digital storage of important files.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Is It Time for Spring Cleaning?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Ultimately, how long to keep tax records and other information is up to you. If you have the space to keep paper records, make sure that they&#8217;re properly secured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Whether you have digital or paper records, you should know that human error is often the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2018\/06\/21\/the-biggest-cybersecurity-risk-to-us-businesses-is-employee-negligence-study-says.html\">root cause of data breaches<\/a>. Taking the time to make sure that your important information is locked up tight is key.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you have paper records, make sure that they can only be accessed by appropriate personnel. The same advice holds true for online or cloud-based records.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you feel like you have too much clutter and it&#8217;s overwhelming you, just do a little bit of spring cleaning at a time. Take your time to separate records into categories: current information and inactive information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We have a wide range of templates that can help you organize your business, from hiring new employees to ongoing accounting procedures.  and let us know what you think!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Is your office getting cluttered up with old paperwork? Do you have employee files from the 90s that you would like to get rid of?&nbsp; If you&#8217;re wondering how long to keep tax records and employee information, this article&#8217;s for you. We&#8217;ll give you the inside scoop on how long to keep documents and help [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1469"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1469"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1471,"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1469\/revisions\/1471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}