Your company must maintain proper records of its financial transactions and retain the source documents, accounting records and schedules, bank statements and any other records of transactions connected with your business for at least 5 years from the relevant Year of Assessment (YA). 

Required Record Keeping Duration

Your company must retain its accounting records and supporting documents for at least 5 years from the relevant YA. 

Failure to do so may result in expenses claimed being disallowed and/or penalties.

Example 1: Companies with Dec financial year end

YA Financial YearTo Keep Records Till
20191 Jan 2018 to 31 Dec 201831 Dec 2023
2023 1 Jan 2022 to 31 Dec 202231 Dec 2027

Example 2: Companies with non-Dec financial year end

YA Financial YearTo keep Records Till
20191 Oct 2017 to 30 Sep 201831 Dec 2023
20231 Oct 2021 to 30 Sep 202231 Dec 2027

Struck Off or Wound Up Companies

If your company has been struck off and dissolved, a person who was an officer of the company immediately before its dissolution must ensure that all books and papers of the company are retained for at least 5 years after the date on which the company was dissolved.

If your company is being wound up, the liquidator of the company must ensure that all the books and papers of the company are retained for at least 5 years from the date of dissolution of the company.

Record Keeping Guides

Check out the Record Keeping Checklist (PDF, 61KB) for a summary of the different types of records required.

You may also refer to the relevant e-Tax guides:

Record Keeping Self-Assessment Toolkit

IRAS’ self-assessment toolkit helps companies to perform a self-review of their existing record keeping standards and to identify the possible areas for improvement:

Using Accounting Software

The use of accounting software helps companies to improve their record keeping standards and comply with tax obligations. View IRAS’ Accounting Software Register Plus (ASR+) for a list of software that companies are encouraged to adopt to manage their day-to-day business operations and transactions digitally, as well as fulfil their tax obligations seamlessly.

FAQs

If my company purchases a new accounting software, do we need to migrate all the accounting transactions recorded in the existing accounting software to the new accounting software?

There is no specific requirement for companies to migrate the accounting transactions recorded in the existing accounting software to the new accounting software.

However, after purchasing the new accounting software, your company must continue to retain and be able to retrieve the accounting transactions that had been recorded in the existing software for at least 5 years from the YA or end of the GST accounting period accordingly. Other business documents associated with these transactional records, such as source documents, accounting records and schedules and bank statements, should be retained as well.