Exactly How Long Should You Keep Employee Paystubs as an Employer?
The government has rules and regulations that govern different aspects of businesses that owners have to adhere to and you should know now! Legal papers that can help in identifying your employees and their paystubs showing hours worked and earnings are some of the things you are required to by law to maintain as discussed here. Some of the things you need to know about is how long and where these sensitive employee documents should be kept before taking the leap. You can learn more on how long to keep employee paystubs in the article below.
The answer to your first and most obvious question is that employers are required to keep paystub information for a minimum of two years; you have to keep a record of their wages and hours of work for this duration before you can get rid of them. One of the most important things to remember is that the minimum two year duration only applies for federal purposes; state regulations may state otherwise, and you should research before discarding any these sensitive information.
The next question you should find an answer to is where to keep these sensitive documents; the answer is very simple; these documents need to be kept in a safe location that is easily accessible because you never when you may have to retrieve them. When you are choosing a location for your employees’ paystubs and other sensitive information, you should not only be thinking about convenience but security too; only employees with the right clearance should be allowed to access them.
This may seem a little too much to some business owners, but given your employees’ sensitive information like social security numbers and addresses are on these documents, you can see why it is important to keep them under lock and key. You should know that the government is interested in and governs more than just employee-related documents, therefore, you need to know everything you are required to keep and for how long before getting rid of anything important.
Other important documents like purchase and sales records should be stored in the same location as the paystubs and other employee-related documents and given the same level of security. If you have been having questions about keeping employee paystubs, here are some of the answers and important reasons to keep them around for the required duration. Now you know exactly how long you should keep employee paystubs.