Tax time is nearing an end. Once this tax season is over, your tax return and its supporting documentation need to be kept for up to seven years. Most businesses keep their actual returns indefinitely. Consult your tax advisor for retention advice for your own personal situation. Seven years’ worth of tax returns and documentation can take up a lot of space in your office or home office. Here are some tips on the most effective ways to organize and store your tax archives. Here are a few tips we advise.

Keep Files Together – Keep all files relating to a given tax year together in one spot. This makes it easy to find what you need when you need it. Often times, tax archives are only referenced in the event of an audit. If you are audited, it is much less stressful when everything you need is all in one place.

Label – Clearly label all files, including the file drawer, portable storage box, or bankers box where you are storing the files. In addition to the description of the contents, you should include a destroy after date. This will make it easy to know when the contents can be shredded without having to sort through them again years from now. Labeling your files and boxes now will only make it easier for you to retrieve later when you need to access the documents.

Store Out of the Way – Don’t store your tax archives in your prime office space. What I mean by that is store these files out of the way somewhere else.. It could be in the least accessible file drawer or cabinet in your office, or maybe even outside of your office in a storage room or offsite storage facility. This will ensure that you are not using your valuable working space for files that you access infrequently.

Follow these three easy tips to make your tax time more organized and less stressful.

If you need any assistance on designing a storage system please feel free to contact one of our representatives.

- The Shelving Guy