Today, many companies realize that they are not complying with their legal obligations regarding data archiving.
However, most of them are also unaware of the implications of the Swiss archiving law for companies. To make the subject clearer, and to make you as operational and efficient as possible, here are our answers to the most frequently asked questions about storing your archives…

Documents concerned

  • Annual accounts (invoices, balance sheet, report).
  • Account books.
  • Accounting documents.
  • Commercial correspondence.

The companies concerned

  • Commercial companies (partnerships, SA, Sarl).
  • Companies with sales of CHF 100,000 or more.

Form and shelf life

  • In written, electronic or comparable form.
  • Sales data must be kept for 10 years after the end of the sales year.

Concerning electronic storage

  • Documents must not be modifiable
  • They have to remain readable, which means hardware and software have to be kept up to date.
  • They must be available
  • Current documents must be separated from archive documents

Nowadays, for most companies, data is generally in electronic form and in the form of e-mail.
It’s important not to forget this aspect, and to be prepared to apply this law to your e-mails too.
What’s more, the legal obligation to archive your data has a number of advantages:

  • Data is quickly retrieved thanks to indexing.
  • This provides data transparency.

More on email archiving?

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