Safe Storage
We covered last month the first basic steps of setting up your business record keeping. Your new business bank account, e-mail and book-keeping should be capturing a lot of the data you’ll need.
Now, it’s time to look at the best way to store all of your incoming documents.
Will I need my old documents?
Even though documents are usually viewed and claimed within the financial year, there are some important reasons to keep them.
Inland Revenue needs businesses to keep records for seven years. The likelihood of your business being audited is small, but possible. While your accountant will prepare based on the information you give them, it’s your responsibility to have the documents to back it up. If you’re unsure of what documents you need to keep, your accountant can always help.
If at any time you want to analyse business revenue and costs, having old documents safely stored and accessible will make this task a lot easier too.
What’s the best way to record and store?
At Robinson and Son, we’ve found these steps make safe storage a whole lot easier:
Cloud storage keeps your data across multiple servers and multiple locations. The chance of losing your data on cloud is slim to none. Your data can be accessed at any computer with an internet connection, much like e-mail. Your digital files can be stored on any of these:
Now, it’s time to look at the best way to store all of your incoming documents.
Will I need my old documents?
Even though documents are usually viewed and claimed within the financial year, there are some important reasons to keep them.
Inland Revenue needs businesses to keep records for seven years. The likelihood of your business being audited is small, but possible. While your accountant will prepare based on the information you give them, it’s your responsibility to have the documents to back it up. If you’re unsure of what documents you need to keep, your accountant can always help.
If at any time you want to analyse business revenue and costs, having old documents safely stored and accessible will make this task a lot easier too.
What’s the best way to record and store?
At Robinson and Son, we’ve found these steps make safe storage a whole lot easier:
- Embrace the Cloud
Cloud storage keeps your data across multiple servers and multiple locations. The chance of losing your data on cloud is slim to none. Your data can be accessed at any computer with an internet connection, much like e-mail. Your digital files can be stored on any of these:
- Microsoft OneDrive – Comes with the highly recommended Office 365. Offers a massive 1TB of storage.
- Box – Free! Up to 10GB of storage - more than enough for small business.
- DropBox – Free up to 2GB. Runs smoothly on all operating systems and compatible with Microsoft Office.
2. Digitise everything
Companies like to e-mail invoices. Postage is free and customers have a bill that is always handy. This can be easily saved to your chosen cloud storage (above). You can take this a step further by doing this to all your documents using these:
Companies like to e-mail invoices. Postage is free and customers have a bill that is always handy. This can be easily saved to your chosen cloud storage (above). You can take this a step further by doing this to all your documents using these:
- Home scanner: Lots are available on the market. We recommend getting one that can both colour scan and take big wads of documents. We’ve found the Brother MFD-9140 to be brilliant, but you’ll need to judge what’s best for your business.
- Genius Scan: Little receipts can be tricky and time consuming to scan. This app lets you take a photo from your smartphone, format, categorise, and upload it directly to your chosen cloud storage.
3. Deal hard copy
The world is trending to digital, but we still need hard copy. Legal documents and original invoices for example, should be kept in hard copy. Until everyone is comfortable with digital, we’ll have to deal with hard copy - and here’s how:
The world is trending to digital, but we still need hard copy. Legal documents and original invoices for example, should be kept in hard copy. Until everyone is comfortable with digital, we’ll have to deal with hard copy - and here’s how:
- Filing Cabinet: These can be bulky, but are great for securing and sorting your documents.
- Receipt spike: For tiny stuff that gets easily lost. Place receipts on here before if you haven’t scanned them, and file them if you have
- Shoe box: Acceptable alternative to filing cabinet. It will take a long time to find anything, but things are all in one place.
- Paper shredder. For everything older than seven years, or not needed. Your personal and business data is valuable, so shred an anything sensitive before throwing out.
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