A sizeable activity in our accounts dept. is filing and archiving paper originals of invoices, etc. If these are scanned into a computer which has proper backup and archiving of data do we still have to retain the paper originals? If so for how long? (I am in charge of IT and am trying to bring our accounts dept. into the 21st century!)
Paul Lakra
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Andersens are very good at shredding!
Philippa,
andersens are very good at shredding clients docs. They couldn't care less if their chief executive stays or goes as long as they make their billions!.
JT
Digitising Documents
The exact legal status of scanned document is still a tricky area. It all revolves around being able to prove that the scanned image is a true representation of the paper copy, and that your IT systems are secure enough to prevent and/or detect any attempt at tampering.
You might want to get hold of the BSi document 'PD 0008:1999' 'Legal Admissibility and Evidential Weight of Information Stored Electronically'.
In the short term, the best compromise is to switch to electronic filing for day-to-day activities, with the paperwork kept in boxes in a lockup or with one of the commercial document storage companies.