Data Compliance: How does audit-proof archiving work?

Does your archiving violate the law? Every country has special laws concerning the archiving process of digital business documents. They are obligatory for all businesses – no matter how big or what form of business organization. In case of an infringement, high penalty charges of up to 20 million € can be impended.

What is audit-proof archiving?

In Germany, the legal regulations for long-term archiving of digital business documents are established in the “principles for properly maintaining and storing electronic books, records and documents as well as data access” (“Grundsätzen zur ordnungsmäßigen Führung und Aufbewahrung von Büchern, Aufzeichnungen und Unterlagen in elektronischer Form sowie zum Datenzugriff“ (GoBD)). All documents that classify as business letters or are relevant for taxes, have to meet the requirements for audit-proof archiving. What does this mean? To put it in a nutshell: The documents have to be archived in their complete form, unaltered, fast, structured and unchangeable.

And that is only the bottom line of 36 pages of the GoBD regulations. The sheer complexity of guidelines drives especially small and middle-class companies into despair. Existing systems and well attuned operations have to be changes – which can be a time-consuming and expensive process. But there is another way!