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You must keep all records for at least 5 years from the end of the accounting period. If you fail to keep proper records, you will not be able to support your GST declarations and penalties may be imposed.
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Types of records

Income records

You must keep these documents to support your sales and revenue:

  • Tax invoices or simplified tax invoices
  • Serially numbered receipts or cash register tapes
  • Rental agreements (signed by both landlord and tenant) for rental income
  • Credit notes for returned goods
  • Export documents (bill of lading, air waybill, export permit)
  • Bank statements showing payments received

Purchase and expense records

You must keep these documents to support your business purchases and expenses:

  • Invoices or receipts for each purchase or business expense
  • Payment vouchers for services and related contracts
  • Rental agreements (signed by both landlord and tenant) for rental expenses
  • Import documents (bill of lading, air waybill, import permit)
  • Bank statements showing payments made

Other business transaction records

You must also keep records for transactions that affect your GST calculations, including:

  • Use of business assets for private purposes
  • Disposal of business assets
  • Removal of goods from a Customs-licensed warehouse

In addition, you must keep records of the steps taken to assess whether supplies made to you or by you were part of a Missing Trader Fraud arrangement, including:

  • The risks assessed
  • The due diligence checks performed, including any checks designed to address the specific risks
  • The actions taken in response to the results of the checks

Statements & accounting schedules

You should also keep these documents to keep track of and summarise your records:

  • Business bank statements (separate bank accounts for personal and business purposes are recommended)
  • Stock lists at the end of each accounting period
  • General ledgers showing assets, liabilities, revenue and expenses
  • Balance sheet and profit and loss statements
  • Sales listings with the following details to explain your supplies:
    • Invoice date
    • Invoice number
    • Name of customer
    • Description
    • Invoice amount excluding GST ($)
    • GST amount ($) if applicable
    • Destination of goods (if applicable)
  • Purchase listings with the following details to explain your purchases: 
    • Invoice date / import permit date
    • Invoice number / import permit number
    • Name of supplier
    • Supplier’s GST registration number
    • Description
    • Invoice amount excluding GST ($) / Import CIF value ($)
    • GST amount ($)

Download our Record Keeping Templates (XLSX, 66KB) to prepare your sales and purchase listings.

 

How to organise and keep your GST records

Keeping a GST account

A GST account is a summary of the totals of your input tax and output tax for each accounting period. Keeping a GST account facilitates the completion of your GST returns.

Electronic records

You can keep records in other forms (e.g. electronic media and imaging systems) without seeking approval from IRAS, provided you satisfy the requirements in the respective guide based on your business type:

For a summary of the different types of records required, refer to the Record Keeping Checklist (PDF, 64KB).

Check your record keeping

Use our self-assessment toolkit to review your current record keeping practices and identify areas for improvement:

If you change accounting software

When you change accounting software, you do not need to migrate old transactions to the new accounting software. However, you must:

  • Retain the accounting transactions in your old software for at least 5 years from the YA or end of the GST accounting period
  • Retain all business documents associated with the accounting records, such as source documents, accounting records and schedules and bank statements
  • Be able to retrieve records when requested by IRAS

If you lose records

If you are unable to provide sufficient documents to support your input tax claim, it will be disallowed.

If you lose the supporting documents to prove the export of your goods or provision of international services, you will have to treat your sale as a local supply and account for the 9% GST accordingly.

In addition, penalties may be imposed for failure to maintain sufficient documents to support your GST declaration.

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