Records Management – Payments to Vendors

Please note that financial documents must be retained in accordance with to the U of T File Plan – Finance.

Documents relevant to the section Purchasing and Payments to Vendors would include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Departments – packing slips / receiving reports, purchasing card statements, supplier invoices, journal entries, budget transfers, imprest bank account statements, petty cash reconciliations, petty cash reimbursement forms, purchase orders.
• Financial Services – e.g. cheque registers, foreign drafts

Generally, the above documents should be kept in your “Active” (office) files in the fiscal year in which the document was created (i.e. the “current” fiscal year). The document should then be placed in “semi-active” storage (a secure on-site storage area or an off-site storage facility, to be determined by the individual unit) for an additional six (6) fiscal years (only one year for purchase orders). Thereafter, the documents should be destroyed.

For example, supplier invoices entered into FIS in August 2006 would be retained in the office’s active files for the current fiscal year (2006/07). Once the annual audit is completed (in this case June 2007) the supplier invoices for fiscal year 2006/07 would be moved to semi-active storage through to the end of the 2012/13 fiscal year. These records should be destroyed after the 2012/13 annual audit (June 2013).

If you have any questions regarding the U of T file plan, please contact University of Toronto Archives and Records Management Services.