Project records: what to keep after closeout, and for how long
The job is closed out, and your coordinator has stacked 30 boxes by the office door, asking which can be shredded. The server holds 40,000 photos and every project email, and nobody has written down what must be kept, or for how long.
Records get destroyed too early or kept where nobody can find them, and both hurt when a question comes back: a tax audit, a latent defect, a lien, an insurance claim. There is no single retention period; each type of record has its own reasons to be kept, and the longest one sets its date.
- List record types, not boxes — contracts, reports, photos, drawings, manuals, warranties, safety and financial records — and why each is kept: tax, contract, warranty, claims or a regulator.
- Take tax periods from the tax authority, and confirm them with your accountant. In Canada, the Canada Revenue Agency generally requires records to be kept six years from the end of the last tax year they relate to, longer in some cases, and destroying them sooner needs its permission. The US Internal Revenue Service's periods run from three years to indefinitely, depending on the situation.
- Ask your lawyer how late a claim could arrive. Limitation periods differ by province, state and contract. In Ontario, for example, the basic period is two years from when a claim is discovered and the ultimate period is generally 15 years from the act or omission; agreements between businesses can change them, within limits.
- Give each type a destruction date and an owner, and log what was destroyed.
- Keep records readable: originals with their metadata, in formats you can still open, in more than one place — see records you can rely on.
- Hold everything for a job in dispute until your lawyer releases it.
Records kept in a software service follow its terms, not your schedule: export what you must keep before a subscription ends. For this site's service, see what happens to your records.
Common mistakes
- Using one period for everything because someone once said "seven years".
- Keeping paper nobody can search instead of an indexed archive.
- Leaving the only copy in a former employee's inbox or a lapsed software account.
Checklist
Your retention schedule
- Every record type, with the reason it is kept
- Tax periods confirmed with your accountant
- Claim periods confirmed with your lawyer
- A destruction date and an owner for each type
- A hold rule for jobs in dispute
- Copies you can open and reach years from now
Check your understanding
The tax period for a job's financial records ends next year, but its warranty and claim periods run longer. Which date applies to the project file?
