How long should a business keep credit card receipts?
If your business recently began accepting credit card payments, you may be wondering how long you need to keep the receipts for. There is plenty of confusion about this as many people believe that all business related documents need to stored for up to seven years – however, that’s not always the case.
When you’re running a business, it’s important that you have a strong record keeping system set up. Ideally, you want to be able to access relevant business documents – including accounting reports, bank statements and credit”>http://www.mbna.co.uk/business/index.html””>credit card transaction receipts – within a few minutes, so an organised filing system is vital.
The documents that you need to hold onto long-term will vary from business to business.
Some items need to be kept permanently: documents such as accounting ledgers, annual general reports and statutory records fall into this category.
On the other hand, other records and receipts – such as credit card receipts – can be discarded after an allocated periods.
The main reason you need to keep legible copies of credit card sales receipts for any period of time is so you can refer to them if any disputes with customers arise, or a credit card company approaches you regarding a chargeback.
Chargebacks occur when customers believe that they have been charged for something in error – such as if their card was used fraudulently, or they were double charged for an item that they only bought once.
In cases such as these, credit card companies will often cancel the charge and attempt to collect the amount back from you. If you can’t present your original credit card transaction receipt, you may have trouble settling the dispute with the credit card company.
For this reason, you should keep your credit card receipts on hand for at least 18 months to two years. There is no legal requirement for you to hold onto your credit card receipts for any length of time, but this gives you a buffer so you can to handle any disputes that may come up.
Once you are finished with any sensitive documents such as credit card receipts, you should shred the paperwork immediately.
From a financial point of view, it’s very important that you retain and store all of your business’ important documents and receipts in a safe and secure location. Failure to retain documents for the use of the Inland”>http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/businesses/index.shtml””>Inland Revenue can result in hefty fines of up to £3,000, so always err on the side of caution – and if in doubt, don’t throw it out.
About the Author:
Peter Carville is a freelance article writer who writes for Financial Facts about the current financial news and the credit crunch.
