How many pay stubs should i keep

The six-year period begins at the end of tax season and is based on your file date. If you file your tax return late , the six-year period also begins late! Knowing how long to store documents and employee records is very important in the workplace. Good organization is helpful for everyone and is also important when complying with government rules and regulations.

Holding onto documents either too long or not long enough can actually end up costing businesses quite a lot. Here is what you need to know about keeping pay stubs and other important documents. After the six or seven year period is over, it should be safe to utilize a secure shredding solution to ensure confidentiality. Ensure pay stubs are stored in a secure location, as pay records are considered personal information.

It is important that employers keep pay stubs and other personal and financial employee information in an organized and secure manner. Only a select few authorized individuals should be able to access employee records. You may choose to keep pay stubs in both paper form and online, just in case something happens. How can you ensure that both physical and computer copies of pay stubs and other records are secure? Using a records management servic e can help you stay organized and ensure sensitive information stays private.

Consult the chart below to find out how long to keep each of your most important financial documents:. And while you can safely keep most bank, tax, and investment documents on your computer or a hard drive , you should always have physical copies for these items:.

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If you have a shredder in your home, use it to shred your pay stubs so that people won't be able to get access to your personal information. If you don't have a shredder, take your pay stubs to a business that supplies shredding services. Your city or town might even offer free shredding to residents at certain times of the year.

This will cut down on the clutter you have in your home while also ensuring that you don't have to deal with identity theft later. Would you feel better holding on to your pay stubs for longer than a year rather than throwing them out? It's not usually necessary to keep pay stubs around that long. But if you really want to do it, make digital copies of your pay stubs that you can keep on your computer or on a hard drive.

Digital copies of pay stubs will take up no space at all while allowing you to access them whenever you want. Many employers are even giving their employees the option of receiving digital pay stubs from the beginning as opposed to hard copies that they have to store.

You never want to throw out your pay stubs as soon as you receive them. But you also don't want to keep them for too long and clutter up your home.

Knowing how long to keep pay stubs will help you avoid both these scenarios. By hanging on to pay stubs for a year, you'll ensure you have pay stubs when you need them without letting them linger for longer than you have to.

If you're an employer, provide your employees with the pay stubs they need by utilizing a pay stub generator. Your employees will receive the pay stubs they need , and you won't have to pay a fortune for it. Try our pay stub generator tool today to see how easy it is to use! Some banks charge a fee for paper statements now, as electronic paperwork becomes more readily available. For other documents, you can use a scanner to scan them into your computer, or you can take photos using your cell phone.

Other digital storage options include external hard drives, like HDDs and SDDs, which are compact solutions for storing massive amounts of electronic data.

An even more compact solution is storing electronic paperwork on a flash drive, although flash drives also are easier to misplace or damage. If you go the digital route, it may be a good idea to create multiple backup copies in case one of them is damaged or fails. Digital backups take up much less space than having multiple paper copies of your important documents.

Another option is to go with cloud-based storage for essential paperwork. The past several years have seen an explosion of cloud-based solutions, including:. Using cloud-based storage not only saves on space, but also can be great for organizing and keeping your documents secure, since most services guarantee protection through encrypted networks. Many cloud-based solutions allow access through mobile devices, making your documents accessible almost anywhere in the world.

The last thing you want to do is shred something to save space, only to need it five years later. Throwing away documents with your trash exposes your information to anyone willing to do a little dirty work to steal your identity.

You might not realize how much information is present on your old bills, statements, voided and canceled checks and other financial documents. Your best option is to shred any documents that contain sensitive information before tossing them. Either invest in a shredder for your home or utilize a professional shredding service.

Many cities also hold free paper shredding days for residents. A financial life necessarily involves a significant amount of documentation—from monthly bank statements to insurance documents to the various materials required to file your taxes. Kevin Payne is a personal finance and travel writer who writes about credit cards, student loans, debt, credit, and family finances. Kevin lives in Cleveland, Ohio with his wife and four kids. Select Region. United States. United Kingdom.

Kevin Payne.