Note:
GDPdU is the German acronym for “Principles of data access and verifiability of digital documents”.
The German regulations on data access and the auditability of digital documents allows the fiscal authority to access tax-relevant data, including data from previous financial years. The GDPdU regulations stipulate that all tax-relevant data and documents originally produced electronically must be retained in a form suitable for digital analysis for the retention period set down by law (up to 10 years or more). Data must be retained in the productive system for direct access by the tax auditors. All electronic documents must be accessible on request for the tax auditor in a manner where they are included in accordance with the accruals concept for each relevant business transaction/customer record:
- Accounting journals, master data.
- Offers, contracts, delivery reports, invoices, etc.
- Payroll accounting (also travel expenses and reports, etc.).
- Time recording systems, cash balance for PC cash points.
The data must be stored in its original form and should be accessible even if the format is no longer supported.