Periods of retention
(1) Every merchant is obliged to retain the following documents in a structured manner:
1. commercial records, inventories, opening balance sheets, annual financial statements, standalone financial statements pursuant to section 325 (2a), management reports, consolidated financial statements, consolidated management reports, as well as the work instructions and other technical documents required to understand the above documents,
2. the commercial letters received,
3. reproductions of the commercial letters dispatched,
4. vouchers for accounting entries in the books the merchant is to keep pursuant to section 238 (1) (accounting vouchers).
(2) The term “commercial letters” solely designates documents pertaining to a business transaction.
(3) To the exception of the opening balance sheets and opening financial statements, the documents listed in subsection (1) also may be stored as reproductions on an image carrier or on other data carriers, provided that this is in keeping with the principles of proper accounting and provided that it is ensured that the reproduction or the data:
1. are true images of the commercial letters received and of the accounting vouchers and will be congruent with the substance of the other documents upon being made readable,
2. are available during the term of the retention period and can be made readable at any time within a reasonable period.
Where documents have been created, based on section 239 (4) sentence 1 on data carriers, the data also may be retained as printouts instead of retaining the data carriers; the documents so printed out also may be retained in accordance with the stipulations of sentence 1.
(4) The documents listed in in subsection (1) no. 1 are to be retained for ten years, the documents listed in subsection (1) no. 4 are to be retained for eight years, and the other documents listed in subsection (1) are to be retained for six years.
(5) The retention period commences at the end of that calendar year in which the most recent entry was made into the commercial record, or in which the inventory was prepared, or in which the opening balance sheet or the annual financial statements was/were adopted, or in which the standalone financial statements pursuant to section 325 (2a) or the consolidated financial statements were drawn up, or in which the commercial letter was received or dispatched, or in which the accounting voucher was created.