Preserving and Retaining Your Records

The federal government has certain requirements related to how and where you keep your records. According to those requirements, you must:

• Keep your records at your place of business or at an established central recordkeeping location.
• Keep your records safe, accessible, and open to inspection and transcription at any time by auditors from the Wage and Hour Division.
• If your records are kept at a central location apart from your place of business, make the records available at the place of inspection within 72 hours after notice from the Wage and Hour Division.
• Make any extensions, recomputations, or transcriptions of your records and submit them to the Wage and Hour Division, if the auditor makes such a request in writing.

Recordkeeping form or media. The law does not specify what form your records should take. Whatever method you use is sufficient if the records establish the information or data required by law. You may choose to keep the records on paper or electronically.

Warning If you keep your records on your computer, make sure you have a backup copy.

Organization is the key. Records will not be considered adequate if the specified information must be computed from scattered, unrelated, or unintelligible sources. So, having a bunch of sticky notes in a folder that record your employee's information will not be considered proper recordkeeping!