Setting up business data retention

The first step to setting up Accounting for business data retention is to select a retention period. The retention period is the amount of time you store customer and vendor data (or records) for business or compliance purposes. When the retention period ends, you must remove the data.

There is no specific mandate as to how long you should retain customer and vendor data. You need to ensure that your business keeps the data only as long as necessary to fulfill the need for which it was obtained. By removing personal data after the retention period, you reduce the risk of keeping unnecessary, inaccurate, or out of date information.

Creating a data retention policy

If you do not already have one, now is a good time to create a data retention policy for your business. This policy should document how long your business needs to store customer and vendor data before removing it. It may also dictate how frequently you check your contact records for personal data that is outside of the retention period.

For more information about how long you need to store data for tax and compliance purposes, consult your accountant or the IRS.

Configuring Financial settings

After determining your retention period, follow the steps below to define the retention period in Financial settings.

To configure Financial settings

  1. Go to Settings, Business settings, Financial settings.
  2. In the Business Data Retention Period section, select the month when your tax year ends in the End of Tax Year field.
  3. Select the number of years you want to retain customer and vendor data in the Retention Period field. Your Accounting records will be archived for this number of years before removal after your tax year ends in the selected month.
  4. Enter any notes applicable to your retention period in the Reason field.
  5. Click Save.
  6. Optionally, click Show History to show (or hide) your retention settings history.

Updating contact records

Each contact record includes a section called Personal Data Retention. You can use the settings in this section to manage data retention on an individual basis. For example, you may need to extend the retention period for some contacts due to a dispute.

To update contact records

  1. Go to Contacts, and the click Customers or Vendors.
  2. Click a contact to open the record.
  3. Click the Options tab.
  4. Review the following information in the Personal Data Retention section. Click Edit (in the upper right-hand corner) if you want to edit the information.
    5. Last Transaction Date Shows the date of the last transaction your business processed for this contact.
    Suggested Removal Date This suggested removal date is the global retention period in Financial settings. This date is hidden if the global date has not been set.
    Extended Removal Date If necessary, set an extended removal date for the contact. This date applies only to this contact. It does not reset the global retention period in Financial settings.
    Reason for Extension This field displays only if you entered an extended removal date for this contact. You must enter the reason for the extension in this field.
    Permanent Record Displays Yes if this contact has agreed to keeping their data as a permanent record and you marked This contact has consented to be a permanent record. Displays No if the check box is unmarked.
  5. Click Save.

Be sure to check contact retention periods according to your business' data retention policy. Accounting does not notify you when the retention period is up. For additional information, see Removing personal data.

Reviewing the change history

When working with contact records, you can view a history of any changes made to the Personal Data Retention section in contact records. Click Show History (the last option in the section) to display all changes made to the fields in this section. You can view who made the changes, when, and why by expanding this section. This is useful for audit and compliance purposes.