How Long Should Accounting Records Be Kept and How to Organise Your Archive

Accounting documents provide evidence of a company’s business transactions. They are needed not only for day-to-day accounting, but also during tax inspections, audits, financial analysis and employment or social security matters. The archive should therefore be managed as part of financial control, not simply as a place for “old files”.

What are the main retention periods?

The Bulgarian Accountancy Act sets different periods depending on the type of information. The main categories are:

• payroll records — 50 years;
• accounting registers and financial statements, including documents relating to tax control, audit and subsequent financial inspections — 10 years;
• all other carriers of accounting information — 3 years.

The periods are calculated according to the rules of the legislation, and other statutory requirements may apply to particular documents. Records should therefore not be destroyed automatically simply because a general accounting retention period has expired.

Paper or electronic archive?

Accounting information may be stored on paper and/or technical media, but electronic storage does not simply mean keeping a photograph of a document in an arbitrary folder. A good system should ensure readability, identification, protection against loss and the ability to retrieve the document when required.

For companies with a high volume of documentation, it is practical to use consistent naming and filing rules — for example by year, month, document type, counterparty or internal reference number. This allows accounting and management teams to work with the same structure.

How to build a reliable company archive

1. Separate documents by type and period. Bank records, invoices, contracts, employment documents and reports should not be mixed without a clear structure.
2. Assign responsibility. It should be clear who submits, checks and archives each group of documents.
3. Monitor missing documents every month. Reconstructing a document years later can be difficult.
4. Maintain backups. An electronic archive is valuable only if it is protected against technical failure, accidental deletion and unauthorised access.
5. Restrict access to sensitive data. Accounting and employment records often contain personal and commercially sensitive information.
6. Define a destruction procedure. Before records are destroyed, check whether another legal basis requires them to be retained for longer.

Why can a well-organised archive reduce costs?

During an inspection or financial review, the most expensive problem is often not the transaction itself but the absence of documentation supporting it. A structured archive reduces search time, makes closing procedures easier and allows faster responses to questions from banks, auditors or public authorities.

Within DESLIN’s Comprehensive Accounting Services, organising the document flow is part of the foundation for reliable reporting and timely management information.

This material is for general information only and is current as of 21 August 2026. Before destroying any documents, the applicable retention period for the specific type of information should be checked.