Banks have a wealth of information about their customers, including contact, identification, and tax information. It is important for institutions and customers alike to know how long banks must retain specific documents.

As a CPA, you acquire a wealth of client records. From basic contact information to complex tax returns, it is easy to get buried under paperwork. You want to make sure that you comply with the law, but you also want to keep your business files organized. The following guidelines will help you implement and maintain a company-wide document retention and destruction schedule.

Many modern companies find themselves buried in mounds of records. Even a small start-up organization with a dozen employees can quickly become overwhelmed with piles of paperwork. It is easy to let this problem build until it reaches a critical state and then make a hasty decision about the records. Poor decision-making can threaten compliance with both legal and business requirements. As such, it’s best practice to create and implement a document retention plan.

In an age where more and more companies are creating and storing their documents electronically, document retention has become more important than ever. More than 99 percent of all company documents are created and stored electronically. Each day there are 60 billion emails alone that are created and sent. It’s much easier to store electronic data than physical data, but that doesn’t mean that you should hold on to it forever.

Each year a legal firm builds up hundreds upon hundreds of files pertaining to their clients. You want to do right by your clients and keep appropriate documentation on hand. However, you also don’t want to get buried under mounds of old paperwork. The following guidelines will help you determine what to keep, how long to keep it, and how to dispose of it properly.

Medical offices have hundreds and hundreds of patient records. Even in a digital age where more records are stored online each year, the storage needs can get out of hand very quickly. What do you do with all of this paperwork? How do you know when it’s okay to get rid of old documents? Medical practices are careful to keep detailed patient records and don’t want to get in trouble by getting rid of them sooner than they should.

A new individual or company falls victim to identity fraud every two seconds. As such, it is not hard to understand why document destruction is more important than ever for modern businesses. Once upon a time, it was enough to set up a cross-cutting shredder in the break room and feel assured that your company was safe. This simply isn’t the case anymore.

With identity fraud targeting a new victim every two seconds, document destruction is more important than ever. Modern organizations cannot set up a crosscut shredder in the break room and assume they are protected. From phone messages to tax forms to hard drives, companies have a wealth of sensitive information that must be disposed of properly. If confidential data gets into the wrong hands, the consequences can be detrimental. You don’t want to compromise the success of your business by leaving the company susceptible to identity theft.

Protecting private customer and employee information is a critical aspect of running a modern business. Regardless of the size of your organization, you cannot risk having sensitive details about your clients or your employees get out to the public. A single security breach can compromise years of hard earned, good reputation. The last thing that you want is to have customers or employees going elsewhere because they can no longer trust you. Take the necessary precautions so that everyone’s information stays safe.

Document destruction is a key aspect of running a modern business. In an age where identity theft is an everyday occurrence, you can’t be too careful when it comes to protecting sensitive information. Many companies use ancient strip shredders and then dispose of the remains in the dumpsters right behind their office buildings, leaving themselves susceptible to thieves who can reassemble the documents in a matter of hours. You cannot afford to take this risk.