Many data and documents must be stored, sometimes for years or decades. The most common documents are: Invoices, receipts, contract documents, tax documents. Legislation stipulates an archiving period of up to ten years for business documents. Data and documents from the medical field must even be kept for up to thirty years or even for life.

The following documents must be kept for 6 years:

Delivery bills, reminders, commercial letters, copies of business letters, business letters received, audit reports, assignment declarations, minutes, price lists, proof of gifts, quotations and order sequence.

The following documents must be retained for 10 years:

Balance sheets, annual reports, accounting vouchers, bank vouchers, inventories, import documents, financial statements, invoices, books, records

The following documents must be kept for 30 years:

Judgments, dunning notices, case files