Paperless Office: How to Store Receipts, Invoices, and Contracts Digitally

On the shelf there's a box of receipts, in the mail inbox invoices are sitting as PDFs, and somewhere in the downloads folder the contract with the web host is waiting. Then the tax advisor asks for the invoice for the graphics tablet from March, and the search begins. For many self-employed people, filing is the topic that can always wait until next weekend.

Yet a paperless office is easier to set up today than ever before, and the rules for it are clearer than their reputation suggests. This guide shows which documents you have to keep and for how long, when the paper can go after scanning, what applies to digital invoices, and how to file ongoing contracts so that no deadline slips past you anymore.

Which documents do you have to keep, and for how long?

This is governed by section 147 of the German Fiscal Code (Abgabenordnung), and it recognizes three deadlines. Ten years apply to books, records, annual financial statements and inventories. Eight years apply to accounting vouchers, that is, above all to invoices that you write or receive, and to receipts. Six years apply to received and sent business letters as well as to other documents that play a role for taxes, such as quotes that led to an order.

The eight years for accounting vouchers are new. Until the end of 2024, ten years applied to them as well; the Fourth Bureaucracy Relief Act shortened the period as of January 1, 2025. The start is also important: The period does not run from the day the invoice arrived, but from the end of the calendar year. So you may delete an invoice from March 2026 at the earliest at the beginning of 2035. For contracts, according to the IHK Frankfurt, the period only begins once the contract has expired.

There is one exception: As long as a document is important for a tax whose assessment period is still running, it stays in the archive, even if the retention period would already be over. This concerns, for example, years for which a tax audit or an objection is still open. If in doubt, ask your tax advisor before tidying up.

Can the paper go after scanning?

In most cases, yes. The German Fiscal Code allows documents to be kept as an image or as a file if this complies with the principles of proper accounting. The only exceptions are annual financial statements and the opening balance sheet, which remain in the original. For all other vouchers, a clear condition applies: The scan must match the paper visually and must remain legible throughout the entire period and be analyzable at any time.

The tax authorities call this replacement scanning and describe the requirements in the Principles for the Proper Management and Retention of Books in Electronic Form, GoBD for short. The GoBD require you to record how you scan: who scans, when scanning takes place, how you check legibility and completeness, and when the paper is destroyed. This description is called process documentation (Verfahrensdokumentation). According to the IHK Munich, the GoBD expressly also affect small business owners who prepare a cash-basis accounting statement (Einnahmen-??berschuss-Rechnung). For a one-person office, in our experience one to two pages are enough, which you write once and adjust when something changes.

In practice this means: Scan every paper voucher promptly, check on the screen whether the amount, date and sender are legible, and collect the originals in a box for a few more weeks before they go into the shredder. That way you can repeat a failed scan.

What applies to invoices that already arrive digitally?

Such invoices stay digital, in the very format in which they arrived. The GoBD require electronic documents to be kept in their original format. Printing out the PDF invoice from the email attachment and filing it is therefore not enough. Save the file itself in your archive, not just the email it came in.

With e-invoices there is an additional peculiarity. Since January 1, 2025, all businesses in Germany must be able to receive e-invoices, including small business owners. An e-invoice is not an ordinary PDF, but contains a structured data set, usually in XML format. According to the revised GoBD of July 2025, it is generally sufficient to keep this structured part. A readable PDF that is sent along only has to be kept additionally if it contains tax-relevant information that is missing from the data set. From when you yourself must write e-invoices is explained in the article E-Rechnung ist Pflicht.

A simple everyday approach: forward invoices that arrive by email to a dedicated folder in your inbox and save the attachments to the archive once a week. Many accounting programs can also read such a folder automatically.

How do you set up a filing system in which you can find everything again?

With a few folders and fixed file names. A proven structure separates first by year and then by type: incoming invoices, outgoing invoices, bank and payments, contracts, tax and authorities. A one-person office rarely needs more folders. More important than the structure is that you use it the same way every time.

For file names, a pattern of date, sender and type works well, for example "2026-03-14_Druckerei_Rechnung". Putting the date first ensures that the files in each folder are automatically sorted by date, and your operating system's search finds the document via the sender. If you also keep an overview of which invoices have been paid and which are still open, you'll find a ready-made framework in the order and invoice overview as an Excel template.

A filed document is no longer edited. The GoBD require that documents cannot be changed without being noticed. If you correct an invoice, you write a new one and file both, instead of overwriting the old file. Many self-employed people therefore write-protect the folder of a closed year.

What about contracts that are still running?

Ongoing contracts need more than a place in the archive, because with them it's not only retention that counts, but also the calendar. Lease for the studio, insurance, hosting, software subscriptions, framework agreements with clients: almost every one of them has a term, a notice period and often an automatic renewal. If you miss the deadline, you pay for another year for a service you no longer need, or you lose the moment to renegotiate with a client.

A simple solution is a list of all running contracts with the contract partner, start, term, notice period and the latest day on which you have to act. You enter this day in your calendar, with a reminder a few weeks beforehand. Once there are more than a handful of contracts or several people access them, contract management software is worthwhile, bundling contracts, deadlines and reminders in one place. With any tool, it is important that you can export the contracts yourself and keep them in your own archive, because the retention obligation remains with you.

When a contract ends, it moves from the list of running contracts to the archive folder of the year in which it expired. That way you can see at a glance when its period begins and when it may go.

How do you secure the digital archive?

With more than one copy. A paper folder is rarely lost overnight, but a hard drive can be. The BSI names a simple rule for data backup: three versions of important data on two different media, one of them in a different location. For a one-person office, that can mean: the archive on your computer, a copy on an external hard drive and another in cloud storage or on a second drive kept elsewhere.

Testing is just as important. In its IT-Grundschutz, the BSI recommends regularly checking whether backups can really be restored. Once a year, retrieve an old document from the backup and open it. Also pay attention to the file format: the Fiscal Code requires that documents remain legible throughout the entire retention period. PDF and XML are well suited for this, exotic formats of a scanning program less so.

What this means for you

A paperless office saves space and search time, but only if filing becomes routine. We keep a fixed weekly appointment for the most important point: half an hour in which you scan, save attachments, name and file them. Then the box on the shelf no longer fills up.

• Create a folder structure by year and type, and name each file with the date, sender, and type.
• Save digital invoices in their original format, and for e-invoices, the XML data record.
• Write a brief process documentation before you destroy the first paper document after scanning.
• Keep a list of your ongoing contracts with their notice periods and enter the deadlines in your calendar.
• Back up the archive according to the three-two-one rule and test once a year whether the backup can be restored.

If you are just starting with your own bookkeeping, you can find more basics in the article Bookkeeping Tips for Start-ups.