After you run a company for a certain period, your filing cabinet shall be filled with a pile of accounting documents. Questions arise up accordingly, how long should I keep them, and when I can throw them away?
Accounting Archives
Let us first see what kinds of accounting archives include.
According to the measure of Chinese accounting archives management, a company's accounting archives include:
Accounting vouchers
original vouchers and accounting vouchers made by accountant according to Chinese GAAP (hereinafter referred to as the accountant vouchers).
Ledgers
general ledgers, detail ledgers, journals, fixed assets cards and other ancillary ledgers.
Financial reports
monthly/quarterly/half-yearly/annual financial reports.
Other documents
bank statements, bank reconciliation, tax return records, preservation & hand-over & discard lists of accounting files, and other value documents deserve to be kept well.
Minimum Preservation Periods
The minimum length of accounting archives’ preservation is general divided into 10 years, 30 years and permanent preservation according to the measure are as below.
|
No. |
Accounting Archives |
Preservation period (Year) |
Notes |
|
1 |
Accounting Vouchers |
|
|
|
1.1 |
Original vouchers |
30 |
|
|
1.2 |
Accountant vouchers |
30 |
|
|
2 |
Accounting Ledgers |
|
|
|
2.1 |
General ledgers |
30 |
|
|
2.2 |
Detail ledgers |
30 |
|
|
2.3 |
Journals |
30 |
|
|
2.4 |
Fixed assets cards |
|
Keep 5 years after disposal of fixed assets |
|
2.5 |
Other ancillary ledgers |
30 |
|
|
3 |
Financial reports |
|
|
|
3.1 |
Monthly/ quarterly/ half-year financial reports |
10 |
|
|
3.2 |
Annual financial reports |
permanent |
|
|
4 |
Other accounting files |
|
|
|
4.1 |
Bank reconciliations |
10 |
|
|
4.2 |
Bank statements |
10 |
|
|
4.3 |
Tax return records |
10 |
|
|
4.4 |
Accounting archives hand-over lists |
30 |
|
|
4.5 |
Accounting archives preservation lists |
permanent |
|
|
4.6 |
Accounting archives discard list and other value files |
permanent |
|
It must be noticed that even a copy of accounting archive preservation period is expired, the company still needs to double check whether it is useful for the company’s other purpose before discard it.
Additional, except above accounting files, other important business documentaries also need to be kept well for long time periods. Such as article of association, agreements, employees records, licenses and so on.
#Accounting Archives
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