For businesses, the storage of accounting documents is one of the important and mandatory accounting tasks.
- Types of accounting documents that must be kept
According to the provisions of Article 8 of Decree 174/2016/ND-CP, the types of accounting documents that must be archived include:
– Financial paper.
– Detailed accounting books, general accounting books.
– Financial report; budget settlement report; budget summary report.
– Other documents related to accounting including types of contracts; management accounting reports; dossiers and reports on finalization of completed projects and projects of national importance; report on the results of inventory and assessment of assets; documents related to examination, inspection, supervision and audit; records of destruction of accounting documents; decide to supplement capital from profits, distribute funds from profits; documents related to dissolution, bankruptcy, division, separation, consolidation, merger, operation termination, transformation of ownership form, transformation of enterprise type or conversion of units; documents related to the receipt and use of funds, capital and funds; documents related to tax obligations, fees, charges and other obligations towards the State and other documents.
- Term of archiving accounting documents
| Minimum 5 years | 10 years minimum | forever |
| – Accounting vouchers that are not used directly to record accounting books and prepare financial statements such as receipts, payment slips, warehouse receipts, warehouse release notes are not stored in the accounting records of the accounting department.– Accounting documents used for management and administration of the accounting unit that do not directly record in accounting books and prepare financial statements.
– In case the above-mentioned accounting documents are required by other laws to be archived for more than 5 years, they shall be archived according to such provisions. |
– Accounting vouchers used directly to record accounting books and prepare financial statements, detailed lists, general tables, detailed accounting books, general accounting books, monthly financial statements , quarter, year of the accounting unit, finalization report, accounting self-inspection report, record of destruction of archived accounting documents and other documents directly used for recording accounting books and making reports finance.– Accounting documents related to the liquidation and sale of fixed assets; report on the results of inventory and assessment of assets.
– Accounting documents of the investor unit, including accounting documents of the annual accounting periods and accounting documents on the finalization report of completed projects in groups B and C. Accounting documents related to the establishment, division, separation, consolidation, merger, transformation of ownership form, transformation of enterprise type or conversion of units, dissolution, bankruptcy, termination of operation , project finished. – Relevant documents at the unit such as audit records of the State Audit, inspection, examination and supervision records of competent state agencies or records of independent auditing organizations. – Other documents that are not required to be archived for at least 5 years or permanently. – In case the above-mentioned accounting documents are required by other laws to be archived for more than 10 years, they shall be archived according to such provisions. |
– For accounting units in the field of state accounting, accounting documents must be permanently archived, including the annual state budget finalization report approved by the National Assembly, local budget finalization report. approved by the People’s Councils at all levels; Dossiers and reports on finalization of completed projects of group A, projects of national importance; Other accounting documents are historical and have important economic, security and national defense meanings.The determination of other accounting documents that must be permanently archived shall be decided by the legal representative of the accounting unit, sector or locality on the basis of determining the historical nature and economic significance. , security, defense.
– For business activities, accounting documents must be permanently archived, including historical accounting documents, having important economic, security and national defense meanings. The determination of accounting documents that must be permanently archived shall be decided by the head or the legal representative of the accounting unit, based on the historical and long-term significance of the documents and information to decide. for each specific case and assign it to the accounting department or another department to keep it in the original form or in another form. – Perpetual retention period must be the storage period of more than 10 years until the accounting documents are destroyed naturally. |
- The form in which accounting documents are stored
Archived accounting documents must be the original as prescribed by law for each type of accounting document, except for some of the following cases:
– The accounting documents specified in Clauses 2 and 3, Article 6 of Decree 174/2016/ND-CP (hereinafter referred to as “Decree 174”) have only one original but need to be archived in many applications. In addition to the original unit, the remaining units may store copied accounting documents.
– During the time when accounting documents are temporarily seized or confiscated according to the provisions of Clause 4, Article 6 of Decree 174, the accounting unit must store the copied accounting documents together with the “Receipt of delivery of accounting documents”. ” as prescribed in Clause 2, Article 7 of Decree 174.
– If an accounting document is lost or destroyed due to objective reasons as prescribed in Clause 5, Article 6 of Decree 174, the accounting unit must store the accounting document as a photocopy. In case accounting documents cannot be copied according to the provisions of Clause 6, Article 6 of Decree 174, the unit must keep a “Minute of identifying accounting documents that cannot be copied”.
The legal representative of the accounting unit decides whether to store accounting documents in paper or on electronic means. The storage of accounting documents must ensure safety, completeness, confidentiality and provide information at the request of competent state agencies.
Accounting documents put into the archives must be complete, systematic, classified and arranged into separate sets of records according to the chronological order of arising and by the annual accounting period.
