Accounting record

What it means

An accounting record, in the sense of the Accounting Act, is any medium carrying information about bookkeeping. It includes the accounting document, books such as the journal and general ledger, the depreciation plan, the stock-take list, the financial statements, the annual report and other documents related to the accounts.

An accounting record may be on paper or electronic. What matters is that it is verifiable, understandable and durable: it must be clear who created it, when and on what basis, and it must not be possible to change it unnoticed. The signature record is part of that verifiability.

The law requires accounting records to be kept for set periods. The financial statements and annual report are kept longest; accounting documents and books generally for ten years after the year they relate to, and some records longer under specific rules.

How it works in practice

With electronic bookkeeping we make sure every record can be printed or displayed in readable form at any time and that records can be traced: from document to journal entry and back. In audits the tax office often asks about exactly this traceability.

When digitising documents, we convert paper documents to electronic form in a way the law allows, preserving content and legibility. After conversion and checking, the company may, subject to conditions, destroy the paper originals.

We set up archiving so that records survive a change of accounting software or provider. When moving to a new system we export data and documents in a readable format and check that they are complete.

What to watch out for

Missing or incomplete accounting records breach the Accounting Act and, in a tax audit, can lead to tax being assessed on an estimated basis by the tax office. That is always worse for the company than taxation on actual figures.

Overwriting or deleting records without a trace is not allowed. Corrections are made with a correcting entry that preserves both the original and the change. We therefore require electronic systems to keep a history of changes.