From filing cabinets to cloud — Records management in the digital age

Mark Gallegos, CPA, MST, Partner — Porte Brown LLC, discusses the importance of having processes around retaining documents for accounting firms as well as advising clients on what information is important for them to maintain. It is imperative to manage files in an efficient manner, and, often, there are different considerations for physical storage versus digital storage.

 

AICPA resources

Document Retention FAQs for Tax Practitioners — Having a written document retention policy for your firm is a must-do along with advising clients on taxpayer record retention.

Document Retention Policy Template for Tax Practitioners — Formalize your tax firm’s policies about retaining documents related to firm operations and client records.

Optimizing your tax practice — Explore tools to manage a more efficient tax practice, enhance your operations, add value to your service offerings and reinforce client relationships.

Transcript

April Walker: Hello everyone and welcome to the AICPA's tax section Odyssey podcast, where we offer thought leadership on all things tax facing the profession. I'm April Walker, a lead manager from the Tax Section. I'm here today with Mark Gallegos from Porte Brown in Chicago. He is a second-time guest, but welcome back, Mark.

Mark Gallegos: Thanks for having me, April.

Walker: Today's topic is about document retention, and this came to my mind for two reasons. One, on a practical level, we at the AICPA just updated some resources around this, some FAQs, as well as a document template, which of course I will share in the show notes.

But second, on a more personal level, recently my family has been cleaning out my in-law’s house and it was pretty clear that their document retention policy was to retain all documents. Either they didn't have one or that was their policy to retain everything. That was fun. But I thought this doesn't seem like a super sexy topic, but it's an important topic.

Mark, I thought maybe let's talk about the importance of a firm having a document retention policy. Maybe talk about some risks associated with not having one or maybe you have one to check the box, but you're not following it. What are your thoughts on that?

Gallegos: I know with clients I always run into either they save everything forever and then they have no idea what they've actually saved in all the boxes. Then there's ones that don't save anything.

Document retention policy is so important. It's critical, especially to a CPA firm, but even beyond that to individuals, to businesses. Because you're dealing with sensitive and regulated information, and when you're looking at that, there's different areas you need to break it down to.

Many industries we work in, including the accounting profession, you're highly regulated and you need to keep documents and you need to have a defined policy that helps define what are the legal obligations for keeping these. You don't want to be fined. You want to make sure you are the trusted adviser that can provide the information, but also you don't want to be the one that's keeping things for 20 or 30 years, that is just keeping up space.

It makes you efficient as an organization because you're basically organizing your documents. You can easily access them, and you can pull them when you need to. It's a good way of keeping security on those documents. Because at the end of the day, you want to be able to secure them.

Obviously, you can secure them in paper form, we can secure them in digital form, and we'll talk about all that. But I think there's different ways, because it is sensitive information, to make sure that you're also doing that. I think one of the most important things is from my perspective, from an accounting firm perspective, is client trust.

They trust us with their information. They trust us with their documents and so we want to make sure that we maintain a systematic approach to handling their information in a sensitive way.

We have that responsibility, and our reputation is on the line to make sure that we're holding up to that. But beyond that, there's a lot of risks that can go involved in this. You're talking about sometimes just legal risks and regulatory risks, like we mentioned.

If you don't have a policy, you might retain the documents [for] too long or too short, or maybe you don't have a policy, so you destroy them after a year when really you should have kept them for a period of time that was in fact what you should have kept them for.

Also, now, someone needs them, and you don't have them.

Operationally, it's good to have it because without a retention policy, these documents can accumulate [and that] can lead to your whole organization being disorganized. Then when you need to find something, you can't find it. That I find is a very common occurrence out there. On top of that, security.

Walker: Lots of reasons to have one. This never happened to me when I was in practice, but I don't know if it has happened to you, or you've heard about it anecdotally. Again, hope it never happens to you, but if in a lawsuit, your records are subpoenaed and you have a document retention policy and you're following it, then maybe if you are asked to produce documents and they're outside of your document retention policy. You're not required to provide them. But if you do have them, then you have to provide them and maybe provide even more.

I think that's like a firm liability risk, also, like so many risks around this. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that piece.

Gallegos: That alone is why you need the policy. I have not run into that.

I've had other colleagues and other firms run into this policy problem, where they've been subpoenaed to provide, we'll call it tax documents, tax work papers and they don't have them.

The first thing that people asked for when they start getting more into a litigation situation is providing your retention policy and they realized they don't have one then. Now, whether they've kept them and destroyed them in the proper amount of time, now their reputation, potentially, they could be on the hook for other fines and penalties.

It's just unnecessary legal action that they get drawn into, when at the end of the day, if they actually had a policy, they can say, we kept it for, we'll say seven years and then we destroyed them. Here's the record of us destroying them and you can provide all that information. It helps the entire situation, which I think is very important.

Walker: I think so. We've talked about the importance of having a policy. What about the guidelines? Are there very firm and fast guidelines on how long you keep certain documents?

Gallegos: One of the things, for us, tax returns — you want to keep indefinitely. I tell my clients that all the time, but there are workpapers and bank statements and payroll documents.

Typically, seven years is the policy. But you want to make sure that you are adhering to what are the rules. And for whether it's a permanent document or whether it's just a work paper. [Determine] what kind of document it is and make sure your policy identifies what your policy is to keep them and then how are you taking steps to make sure that you're following that.

When you're looking at different guidelines. Obviously, the legal requirements are based on what kind of document. Is it a federal tax law mandate? Is it something that is more HIPAA, health care type stuff? Is it SEC regulations and finance? Is it legal? Then you want to establish those categories to identify those different types of documents so that you can put them into different buckets. I think that's very important in this process.

Walker: I mentioned that we have a template for it. It's again, just those general guidelines that you can use for your firm and share with your clients.

But as Mark said, we want to make sure that you understand that there could be different reasons — Government grants or something like that or different state requirements related to keeping certain types of documents. You need to be able to think through that and understand it.

[Let’s talk about] document retention in general, in this digital age. I feel like there's still paper.

We talk about offices being paperless. My house is certainly not paperless. I wish it was, but I just remember, I started practicing in the mid '90s, which makes me feel like an ancient crone at this moment.

But anyway, it was like file cabinets. I can still close my eyes and think about going into the file room, pulling out drawers and things. These were the files that need to be destroyed and we moved files around. I don't know, it’s just bananas to think about.

But [hopefully] your policy is not that the cabinets are full, and we need to go through them.

How do you think about digital storage and what are your thoughts about managing that? Digital storage seems like you have an unlimited amount. Again, you go back to, it feels like, oh, I don't need to care about this. But you really do for the reasons we mentioned earlier. What do you think about digital storage, Mark?

Gallegos: I'm with you. I started in the '90s, I think '97, and I remember filing cabinets full of paper and everything was paper. Now we as a firm, we're very paperless.

But you still see paper and I still go places where I see nothing but paper. I think it's just all over the board, but there is definitely a shift from the physical to the digital document storage. It's altered the landscape out there.

We're seeing more and more of that because everything's pretty much digital. But that's good and bad. You've got to look at it as scalability and space availability. In the past, if I had lots of documents, I had rows and rows of file cabinets or rooms just filled with it and then off-site storage. They were paying an enormous amount of money to keep that paper. Then now with digital, it's all in the Cloud, we'll say, or in some sort of format.

However, without a policy, you can store so much stuff digitally and you don't know how to get to it. Searchability and being able to access what you saved because I could save one thousand documents in the cloud. But if I have no way of really knowing how I documented it, how do I search for it? How do I find that stuff once it's there? I think that's a big thing.

Also with digital storage, it's out of sight, out of mind in some respects. At least with physical, I can start digging through and have people go through these drawers and see what you can find on this. But sometimes when it's out of sight, out of mind, it just keeps building. If I have a firm of tens of people, thousands of people and now everybody's storing and we don't have a policy, we don't have any method. Boy, that's going to be a messy digital storage facility for us.

I think the most important thing in this is data breach, security risks. What happens if I have the greatest storage system, but I haven't protected it from outside security measures? That can be a big problem.

Walker: That's probably a different podcast topic, but every time I have a chance to talk about it, I remind our practitioners that they need a written information security plan. It's required — one reason to have it, but it's also, you just have to have it because of all this data…that you hear about these breaches all the time and it's really scary.

You talked about digital files — they're just everywhere. They could be [hard to find] if you don't have a really good system. Do you have any tools or software or things that you use to help with this, with retention in your firm?

Gallegos: Yes. We have a number of things within the cloud, but we predominately use our CCH products and the document products there. We have a very sophisticated way of how we save things and how they get archived, and we have people who manage that. There's an elaborate system of how data flows and gets stored and when it gets destroyed at the same time.

We're very lucky to have the resources to be able to have a great system. But also, there are other ways out there. There's so many, whether it's accounting platforms, even Microsoft’s SharePoint, Google Workspaces. There's a lot of software out there that can provide different tools. I think it's finding the right tool that works for your organization. What documents am I managing? Is it industry-specific? What are the integration capabilities of my system with this? Then I think [about] stuff we do and I think other people do too, is just regular training and updates. How do you maximize the effectiveness of these tools? Because just like anything, you'd go out and put on your phone the greatest app in the world but if you don't actually know how to use it, it's really not going to provide you any value.

Walker: Useless. I've done the same thing trying to keep up with my to-do list and things. There's some great stuff out there, but then it's all human-dependent at a certain level. The robots haven't taken over the world yet anyway.

We touched on this, but I think it's important to touch on it again, and that is recommendations to clients about their records. I feel like that was a common question that I got and I'm sure it is for you too, Mark. How long should I keep my tax return? Like you said, indefinitely for the tax returns, but that doesn't mean every piece of paper associated with that tax return.

How do you help your clients think about the importance of maintaining those records without going overboard and going into a hoarding situation, and then also the digital? Something sticking in my mind is that you as a firm are not your client's document retention [policy]. They should keep copies of their tax return. At a certain point, you're going to get rid of them and they can't ask you, do you have my 2000 tax return or whatever the year is? No, I don't have that, even if you've been a client for that long. How do you help that? We've talked about security, so you need to preach that to your clients too, of course. But what are your thoughts on that, Mark?

Gallegos: This is a question I get quite a bit, guiding our clients on document retention. It's more of a balancing act sometimes, ensuring compliance, but also helping them. A lot of them are hoarders, whether they want to be or not with that information. I'll have clients to call up, for example, and say, I've gone through my basement, and I have 30 years of boxes of tax documents. So you have to specify what kind of tax documents. Is it the actual tax returns or is it maybe all the work papers? W-2s, 1099s, etc.

I think that's where the template that the AICPA has is great for giving some guidance on what you should do. But I always tell my clients, look, tax returns, keep them indefinitely for yourself. Whether you want to know or not, it's just good to have in case you ever have to pull it out. But basic document storage of your records that support the tax returns, the seven years, or whatever makes sense for your situation is what you should keep.

But I agree, we keep our records for ourselves, it's not because we're keeping them for the client. I think that is where, again, circling back to the whole idea of having a policy is important. From a legal standpoint, assessing business needs, making sure that document management system is efficient. How are we handling it, whether it's paper or digital? Who's managing that? We have some key champions or practice leaders that are involved in that. What are the risks? What are the costs involved in making sure our system is up to date?

But also, just constantly promoting how do we keep it clean? How do we keep it moving forward? By having that, when clients ask you for their own, whether it's their business or individual, you can give them the same insights and then help them determine what policy they should have. Even if you're not a client, you just sit at home, and you've got all kinds of records. Say, I’ve got phone records going back 10 years, should you have that or not? Maybe you should create your own home policy, those things.

Walker: Good advice. Mark, as we're wrapping up, [do you have] final thoughts [to share] on this topic as you're thinking about document retention.

Gallegos: I think it can be a generic topic where people go, whatever. But I think it's more important. Where I see this [being critical] is [due to] all the legal things that come out. Unfortunately, there's a lot of lawsuits that fly in a given year, whether someone is involved or not involved or it's indirect. But needless to say, the one thing that will always come out of it is provide documentation or memos. If you were supposed to have that and you destroyed it or if you have a policy that says you should have kept it — If you should've destroyed it and now you still have it, you still got to produce it. It's all these things that come along that are very important. But also the security risks, the challenges that are involved in that, and sometimes just the cost that's involved. There's a lot involved there that you’ve got to really make sure of in the regulatory and compliance area.

I think so, staying compliant, enhancing your efficiency, helps minimize your risk and at the end of the day, from an accounting standpoint, it builds our trust. Our clients know, hey, you're the trusted advisor. You got our information and you're doing everything you can to make sure that is taken very seriously.

Walker: That's great. Just had another thought as you were talking, and that we didn't specifically talk about is emails and maybe other methods of communication with your clients, text messages. Again, I feel like that's a whole another podcast topic. Why are you texting with your clients? But anyway, at least there are ways to do document retention on emails. But I feel like that's where I've heard things can really go awry with liability situations, so make sure you're thinking about your emails and your email correspondence and any other correspondence with your clients when you're thinking about document retention.

You're a second-time guest on here so you know this question is coming, but I like to think about us taking a journey together towards a better profession and I love to hear about your other journeys outside of tax. What have you got on the horizon? We're at least having a pause in tax season, hopefully, you have something fun planned.

Gallegos: Obviously, busy season and tax season coming to a close is always not only a relief but it's like a celebration in your soul. For me, it's taking a step back to enjoy family and friends, to just thank everyone more intentionally that you maybe didn't get a chance to. But also, I think for me, it's all the soccer games to go to, it's all the school events, it's all the vacations that are coming up.

In the summer, we're going to take my family to the Outer Banks. We go every year. It is one of the most, for me, the relaxing week of my life because I just unplug and I literally get to enjoy beach sun and just relaxation. It's the one time a year more than any time that I really recharge. Not that I need a lot of recharging, but it does help.

Walker: Everyone needs recharging in some way. You have a graduating senior just like I do, where I'm sure there's stuff going on around that as there is at my house too.

Gallegos: Absolutely.

Walker: Thank you so much, Mark. I appreciate your time today and hopefully, we have provided some great information for our listeners.

Again, this is April Walker from the AICPA Tax Section. This community is your go-to source for technical guidance and resources designed especially for CPA tax practitioners like you in mind. This is a podcast from AICPA and CIMA together as the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants. You can find us and listen to us wherever you find your podcast and we encourage you to follow us so you don't miss an episode. If you already follow us, thank you so much and please feel free to share with a like-minded friend. You can also find us at aicpa-cima.com/tax and find all our other episodes as well as the resources mentioned in this episode as well as others. Thank you so much for listening.

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