Obligation to retain important accounting documents

Who is subject to the obligation to retain documents? What exact documents need to be retained? And how should they be stored? This blog post answers these essential questions.

All companies that must register in the commercial register are obliged to keep proper accounts (Art. 957 OR). Proper accounting is characterized, among other things, by documented evidence for individual booking transactions and the ability to audit them (Art. 957a OR). For this, the business books, booking receipts as well as the annual report and the audit report must be kept for ten years (Art. 958f OR). The retention period begins at the end of the fiscal year.

While business and audit reports must be kept in written and signed form, business books and booking receipts can also be stored electronically or in a comparable form (Art. 958f OR).