Record keeping essentials for businesses

Record keeping is the process and system of maintaining business documents so that such records can be found quickly and easily.

View record keeping requirements.

Why keep records?

Good record keeping practices are an important part of your business. Having good record keeping practices can benefit you in the following ways:

(a) Better internal control of your business to help business planning and decision making;
(b) An essential source of evidence to detect business losses, internal fraud and theft; and
(c) Reduction in cost and effort on collating information when preparing for your tax and other reporting obligations.

Businesses are expected to put in place a record keeping system to ensure that your Income Tax or/and Goods & Services Tax (GST) declarations are duly supported with the required documents.

Failure to keep and retain records may be subjected to penalties under the Income Tax Act and/or GST Act.

What kind of records should I keep?

The type of records businesses need to keep include:

(a) Source documents that substantiate all transactions in your business - e.g. receipts, invoices, vouchers, and other relevant documents issued or received from customers/suppliers;
(b) Accounting records and schedules - manual or electronic records of assets and liabilities, revenue and expenses, gains (profit) and losses;
(c) Bank statements; and
(d) Any other records of transactions connected with your business.

How long should I keep records?

Under the Income Tax Act and the GST Act, you are required to keep your business records for a period of at least five years, for records pertaining to accounting period ending on or after 1 January 2007. Business records for accounting period before 1 January 2007 must be kept for at least 7 years

Examples:

What are the penalties for failure to keep records?

Under the Income Tax Act and GST Act, you are required to keep and retain records for the period stipulated above. Not doing so may result in:

(a) Expenses claimed being disallowed; or/and
(b) Penalties

What are the record keeping requirements?

GST-registered businesses

 For GST-registered businesses, please refer to the Guide “Record Keeping Guide for GST-registered Businesses  (136KB)" for the record keeping requirements for both Income Tax and GST purposes. 

Non-GST registered businesses

For Non-GST registered businesses, please refer to the Guide “Record Keeping Guide for Non-GST registered Businesses  (132KB)” for the record keeping requirements for Income Tax purposes.

You may refer to the “Record Keeping Checklist ”, which provides a summarised list of the different types of records required.

Record keeping self-assessment toolkit

IRAS has created a self-assessment tool kit to help businesses perform a self-review of their existing record keeping standards and to better understand the possible areas for improvement.

For non-GST registered businesses, please download the toolkit. 

For GST-registered businesses, please download the toolkit. 

Record keeping enquiries

Should you have enquiries on how you can improve your record keeping standard, please email us at:

ctmail@iras.gov.sg              Income Tax for Companies;

myTax Mail                   Income Tax for Businesses (Partnerships / Sole-Proprietorships /Self-Employed Individuals)

gst@iras.gov.sg                  Goods and Services                                                                       

Find out more about any other special requirement(s) for your industry by clicking on the link(s) below.