GENERAL BUSINESS RECORDKEEPING GUIDE

This is a general idea of business records to keep. CLICK HERE for the IRS website for a more in-depth version. 

 BUSINESS RECORDKEEPING

 It is a general guideline on what business records to keep, most records you keep for 7 years and a few should be permanent records. Try to keep records in a secured locked cabinet.

 Permanent records: Keep Forever!

  1. Any corporation documents, bylaws, Federal EIN, S-Corporation election; if applicable, stock ownership
  2. Purchase documents for the practice
  3. Initial Loan documents which spell out the terms, pre-payment penalty etc.
  4. Initial capital stock contribution or initial owner contribution
  5. Copies of the lease agreement
  6. Corporate Minutes

 Income Records: organize by year and category, or the most intuitive way that makes sense to you.

  1. Copies of deposit slips
  2. FOR DOCTORS: Copies of Practice management reports from your software which shows production and collections for each month. Side note, it’s important to compare your collections to what you actually deposited in your bank since this is an area of fraud.
  3. Copies of Merchant reports for credit card payments
  4. Copies of all Bank Statements and reconciliations (12 months)
  5. Copies of any year 1099s you would receive from insurance companies/credit card companies

 Fixed Assets (equipment/furniture/leasehold improvements): (nearly permanent file)

Organize by year purchased; the first year of business usually has the most fixed assets.

Loans etc: (organize by year)

  1. Copies of all credit card statements and reconciliations (12 months)
  2. Copies of all loan statements (12 months)

Expenses:

  1. Before you pay a contractor or someone with a check have them fill out a FORM W9 for you. Save it to your desktop and just email it to them to fill out and get back to you before you pay them.
  2. You can organize vendor expenses by category and Year, such as: Office supplies, utilities, insurance etc. or organize by vendor name. See what is intuitive for you.

Expenses you pay for personally:

  1. Make a folder for expenses you personally paid for and need to be reimbursed for so you can throw receipts in there and reimburse yourself quarterly, or at least make sure you are reimbursed with a check before the year ends so you can get the write off on your entity tax return. Hopefully, you will not have many but just in case it’s a way to make sure expenses do not get missed.
  2. Print out your mileage log each month and also add it to this folder so you can get reimbursed. Many apps will have reports they can export to pdf/excel that you then could print out. At least make sure to have the company reimburse you by year end with a check.

Employee/Payroll Records (very important)

  1. Binder for all payroll reports (timesheets, payroll quarterlies, monthly employee earnings reports,etc.). Make a binder for each year.
  2. Make a folder for each employee and have:
    • A sign form I9, I’ve attached the form
    • A signed Form W4, attached
    • Their employment agreement (wage, retirement contribution forms, benefits, non-compete, etc)
    • Anything else related to them specifically