How long to keep expenses

Keep receipts for medical expenses for one year, as your insurance company may request proof of a doctor visit or other verification of medical claims. As of Jan. How long to keep: Up to 12 months. Keep paycheck stubs until the end of the year, and discard them after comparing to your W-2 and annual Social Security statements.

How long to keep: One year. How long to keep: Up to three years. If you need them for tax deductions, keep for three years. These records help track your cost basis and the taxes you owe when you sell stocks or properties.

Once you receive the annual summaries, you can shred your monthly statements. If your bank provides online statements, you can switch to receiving your bank documents online and cut down on paper.

How long to keep: Seven years. Just in case a bank or processing error shows up down the line that you might not be in the clear, make sure to hang onto any records of loans — this includes student loans, car loans, etc. How long to keep: Until they are no longer active. After contracts are completed or insurance policies expire, you can discard these documents. Home Business and self-employed Expenses and employee benefits. Expenses and benefits for employers. Record keeping You must keep a record of all expenses and benefits you provide to your employees.

Records must be kept for 3 years from the end of the tax year they relate to. Print entire guide. Related content Expenses and benefits: A to Z National Insurance Get help with tax Payrolling employees: taxable benefits and expenses.

For instance, organize them by year and type of income or expense. Travel, Transportation, Entertainment, and Gift Expenses If you deduct travel, entertainment, gift or transportation expenses, you must be able to prove substantiate certain elements of expenses.

More In File. Supporting Business Documents Purchases, sales, payroll, and other transactions you have in your business will generate supporting documents. The following are some of the types of records you should keep: Gross receipts are the income you receive from your business.

You should keep supporting documents that show the amounts and sources of your gross receipts. Documents for gross receipts include the following: Cash register tapes Deposit information cash and credit sales Receipt books Invoices Forms MISC Purchases are the items you buy and resell to customers.

If you are a manufacturer or producer, this includes the cost of all raw materials or parts purchased for manufacture into finished products. Track everything electronically with an app like Expensify or Boomr. You can use expense tracking features to submit, review and approve the expenses your employees incur while working for you.

You can then run reports on those expenses and sync with your payroll provider for reimbursement. The expense tracking feature within Boomr is easy to use and can be setup in minutes. To find out more about how it works, click here. We created this feature to make tracking your employee expenses as easy as possible — so you can focus on the other aspects of running your business.

Another advantage is that paper records can fade and are susceptible to damage or fire. Records kept in the cloud are safe and secure and free from these risks. Plus, a paperless office is much better for the environment! Most audits only go back three years, but in some cases the IRS can audit you going back to up to six years.