Keeping records

Types of records to keep

Income records

• Tax invoices/simplified tax invoices issued, serially numbered receipts issued or cash register tapes to explain each sales transaction
• Rental agreements signed by both landlord and tenant to explain your rental income
• Credit notes for returned goods
• Documents relating to your exports (e.g. bill of lading, air waybill, export permit)
• Evidence that you have received payment (e.g. bank statement)

Purchase & business expense records

• Invoices or receipts received to explain each purchase transaction or business expense
• Documents relating to your imports (e.g. bill of lading, air waybill, import permit)
• Payment vouchers on payment made to individuals/companies for services rendered and the relevant contracts/agreements on the provision of services
• Rental agreements signed by both landlord and tenant to explain your rental expenses
• Evidence that you have made payment for the purchases (e.g. bank statement)

Other records to support GST declarations

1. You must also keep the source documents of all other business transactions that affect the output tax and input tax reported in your GST return.

Some of these transactions include:

• Use of business assets for private purpose
• Disposal of business assets
• Removal of goods from customs-licensed warehouse

2. Records of the steps taken to ascertain whether the supply made to you or by you was part of a Missing Trader Fraud arrangement.

• The risks assessed

• The due diligence checks performed, including any checks designed to address the specific risks

• The actions taken in response to the results from the checks

Statements & accounting schedules

To keep track of and summarise your records, you should also keep:

• Bank statements of your business (separate bank accounts for personal and business purposes is recommended)
• Stock lists to explain your trading stock on hand at the end of each accounting period
• General ledgers to record your assets and liabilities, revenue and expenses
• Statement of accounts such as Balance sheet and Profit and Loss Statements
• Sale listings in the format below to explain your supplies
• Purchase listings in the format below to explain your purchases 
• Use these templates (XLSX, 66KB) to prepare your sale and purchase listings.

For more details, please refer to our Record Keeping Guide for GST-registered Businesses (PDF, 311KB).

All business and accounting records are maintained for at least 5 years. Failure to do so may result in input GST claims being disallowed and/ or penalties.

GST account

Electronic records

You do not need to seek approval from the Comptroller of GST to keep your records in other forms (e.g. electronic media and imaging systems), so long as you satisfy the requirements in the guides below.

Learn more about the various requirements:  

GST-registered businesses  

Please refer to  Record Keeping Guide for GST-registered Businesses (PDF, 311KB) for the record keeping requirements. The guide also covers requirements for keeping business records in electronic media and imaging systems. 

Non-GST registered businesses 

Please refer to  Record Keeping Guide for Non-GST registered Businesses (PDF, 334KB) for the record keeping requirements. The guide also covers requirements for keeping business records in electronic media and imaging systems.

Non-GST registered small businesses adopting simplified record keeping requirements

For non-GST registered small businesses that satisfy the qualifying conditions to adopt simplified record keeping requirements from 1 Jan 2014 for Year of Assessment (YA) 2015, please refer to the  Simplified Record Keeping Requirements for Small Businesses (PDF, 457KB). 

For a summary of the different types of records required, refer to the Record Keeping Checklist (PDF, 64KB).

Record keeping self-assessment toolkit

Use our self-assessment toolkit to perform a self-review of your existing record keeping standards and to better understand the possible areas for improvement.

For GST-registered businesses, please download the  toolkit (XLSX, 172KB).

For Non-GST registered businesses, please download the  toolkit (XLSX, 30KB). 

FAQs