who maintain the records?

[mr.justaccounting]

the accounting functions of my company are outsourced. Somebody does the tax reporting, payroll, remittances, etc. Now, all the records pertaining to accounting are maintained by the external accountant. Is it necessary that the records be maintained by them? I mean, should my company retain the records like the bank statements?

 

[rtuncap]

I believe that you should retain your own records (source documents). Who is ultimately responsible for your financial statements? You are. If you need to justify or defend your financial statements, you should have the source documents to refer to. You should provide the source documents to your outsourced accountants, and then pick them up when they provide your financial statements. If they want to keep a copy for their records, they should scan the documents for their own archive.

I hope this helps.

Russell