Receipt handling - frequently asked questions & answers

It's easy to collect receipts that pile up in a box (a veritable bird's nest of paper, in short) and questions often arise about this. How long should you keep receipts? And what do you do if the paper has been bleached so that the text is invisible? In this article we will answer these questions, but also talk about the rules that exist around receipt handling.

All business events must be saved and documented

As many may already know - a purchase made by an employee on behalf of the company is a business transaction that should always be recorded and booked. This is true whether the employee pays with the company's money/card or with his/her own money/card. The receipt that the employee receives is the company's receipt and should be treated as if the company had made the purchase itself.

How long must accounting information be kept?

This is the most common question asked about receipt handling, and perhaps the most important. Accounting records (receipts, invoices and bank statements) must be kept for 7 years. More precisely, for seven years after the calendar year in which the accounts were closed. So if you are closing your accounts on 30 June 2012, the bookkeeping file must be kept until the end of 2019.

Receipts - digital or physical?

A common question is how to handle digital receipts and paper receipts. The answer to how they should be stored depends on the original format. A paper invoice should be stored in paper form and a digital invoice should be stored digitally. If you receive an invoice by email and after a few days also in paper form, you can choose which format you want to store, according to the principle you have chosen to display your accounting information.

What do you do with receipts that have become difficult to read?

What you should do with receipts you suspect will fade is make copies. Then you can also make sure that the copies are made of durable paper and print. You can do this because the copy is also valid as evidence. If accounting records are transferred from one material to another, the copy must be kept for seven years, while the original may be destroyed from the fourth year after the end of the calendar year in which the accounting year ended.

Our company has received a receipt in both paper and electronic form from the same sender. Do we need to keep both?

If the company receives the receipt in both paper and electronic form in close proximity to each other, the company may choose in which form to store it. This means that if the company has chosen to present and store receipts in electronic form, the paper receipt does not need to be stored.

However, if the company first receives the receipt in paper form and then photographs the receipt, the rules in the Accounting Act mean that the original paper receipt must also be kept for three years.

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