Financial Services Manual (FIN)

Effective: 4/4/1985

Revised: 7/1/2008

FIN 103: Departmental Record Keeping

Purpose

To retain university financial records for a sufficient time period

Source

University policy

Background

Departments should retain financial records for an extended period of time. One reason for maintaining records is to provide source documents to substantiate charges to sponsored project agency/orgs. Interdepartmental billing computations and receipt acknowledgments for services or materials are particularly important source documents for this purpose. Often sponsors do not audit sponsored projects until a number of years after the project terminates.

Policy

Financial records shall be retained by all ASU departments for the periods listed below: D

Retention Periods for Financial Records
Type of Records	Retention Period	Comments
Interdepartmental billing computations, receipt acknowledgments, and other documents of servicing departments substantiating interdepartmental charges	seven years	Failure to adhere to this policy could result in cost disallowances to ASU and possible charge-backs of previous billings to departments.
Documentation of purchases made with an ASU Purchasing Card. Documentation includes itemized cash register receipts and other point of sale documents that specify what was purchased.	five years	All documentation for Purchasing Card transactions is maintained in the department making the purchase. The documentation must be available for review/audit for five years.
Cash receipts details and cash register tapes	three years	—
Bond and other tax-exempt debt related records	final maturity of the debt plus three years	This record retention is needed to satisfy IRS record-keeping requirements for tax-exempt debt.
All other financial records used for monthly reconciliation	three years	Financial Services typically maintains a copy of these records for seven years.

endtable

University departments with limited storage space may consider storing records outside the office area.

Cross-Reference

For guidance in storing records outside the office area, see the Property Control System Policies and Procedures Manual—PCS 703, “Records Storage and Destruction.”

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