Retention Rules: How Long Should You Keep Your Business Documents?

When you're not sure what to keep, it's tempting to keep everything just in case. But that mindset quickly leads to overflowing shared drives, misplaced files, and even compliance risks. Holding onto documents longer than necessary can create just as many problems as deleting them too soon - from GDPR breaches to audit headaches.

That’s why document retention isn’t just a legal box to tick - it’s key to business efficiency, security, and compliance.

Common Document Retention Periods

These are general guidelines. Retention periods may vary based on your industry regulations or insurance requirements. But if you are keeping thousands of documents for up to 6 years, it’s easy to see how things can quickly get out of control.

Why Over-Retention is a Risk

Under GDPR, personal data must not be kept “longer than is necessary for the purposes for which the personal data are processed.” That means outdated CVs, expired contracts, or redundant reports shouldn’t be lurking in your shared folders.

The longer you hold onto sensitive documents, the higher your exposure to data breaches, subject access requests, and fines for non-compliance.

So, what can you do? 

6 Tips for Smarter Document Retention

1. Audit what you have – identify duplicate or obsolete files
2. Set retention rules – based on legal requirements and business need
3. Standardise folder structures – consistency makes review and deletion easier
4. Use document categories – tag files by type, owner, or expiry date
5. Make someone accountable – ownership is key to consistency
6. Review regularly – schedule time each quarter or year to review what’s being stored and whether policies are being followed.

How Document Management Software Can Help

If you’re manually tracking document expiry dates or relying on staff to remember when to delete files, there’s a better way.

Our Invu Document Management system includes features designed to support compliance and make document handling easier for your teams:

• Flagged retention periods – set rules to receive alerts when a file is approaching the end of its retention or scheduled deletion date
• Auto-deletion policies – automatically remove documents once they’ve reached their defined retention period
• Audit trails – track who viewed, edited, or moved a document, providing full transparency and accountability
• Secure storage and access control – ensure sensitive documents are only accessible to authorised users
• Searchable archives – quickly locate the documents you need using metadata, categories, or keywords. Because it’s one thing to store documents properly but being able to actually find them when you need them is just as important. With Invu, it takes seconds, not hours.

With the right system in place, teams like Finance, HR, Sales, and Compliance can stop guessing what to keep and for how long, where it might be stored, and start focusing on their work.

Ready to Simplify Your Document Retention?

Whether you’re looking to reduce clutter, improve access, or strengthen compliance, we can help you take control of your document retention practices.

Book a demo with our friendly team and see how Invu Document Management can help your business take control of document retention.