Every country requires a business to keep invoices, books and payroll records for years — and almost every country counts differently. Zirko shows you the periods for your country in one place, together with the rule behind each one, so you do not have to piece together three different figures from three sources.
Settings → Company → Retention. Only the Office – Admin sees this tab. Nothing is set there; it is for information.
What the tab shows
Under How long you must keep records there are four kinds of records, each with its period and the rule it comes from:
- Invoices and supporting documents
- Books, records and financial statements
- Payroll records
- Working time records
Four kinds and not one figure, because in several countries documents and books have to be kept for different lengths of time. If you only know the shorter figure, you throw the books away too early — and that cannot be put right afterward. Where several kinds have the same period from the same rule, they share one row.
For each period it says from when it runs: often from the end of the calendar or financial year, not from the date of the document. An invoice from January therefore has to be kept almost a year longer than the figure alone suggests.
When a different period applies
The lower section is the most important one. It says when a period other than the one above applies — above all when the standard period is not enough: for example for records about land and buildings if you have your own workshop or hall, or for as long as an audit by the tax authority is ongoing. Read it through once before you get rid of old folders.
If Zirko knows no documented period for your country, there is no figure there, but a request to ask your tax adviser. A wrong figure would be worse than none.
What this means for Zirko
Zirko is not an archiving service. The obligation is your business's, not ours. When your contract ends, your data stays readable for thirty days and is deleted after that. So back up your records regularly yourself — with the data export.
Deletion only once the period has expired. You can move a project to the archive at any time. It can only be deleted permanently once the longest period in your country has expired — counted from the most recent record attached to it. Zirko always applies the longest period, because it cannot assess what type of record each individual file is.
You do not delete an issued invoice, not even once the period has expired. It is unalterable; a wrong one is canceled.
And its sheet stays as it was. When an issued document is shown for the first time — in the preview or when the PDF is created —, Zirko freezes what is on it: your business details and mandatory details, logo and letterhead, the printed texts. If you later change your address, your logo or a text, that applies to new documents; an issued one still shows, years later, what was on it when it was first shown.
The law is always what counts, not this display. It is no substitute for tax advice.