University Rule 3-014A: Financial Records Retention and Disposal

I.  Purpose & Scope

A.  Purpose: This Rule implements University Policy 3-014 Financial Record Retention, by specifying the retention periods and disposal guidelines for University Financial Records. 

B.  This Rule is binding for all University colleges, departments and units, including University Hospital & Clinics.  This Rule does not govern retention and disposal of non-financial University records

II.  Definitions

A.  The definitions provided in Policy 3-014 apply for purposes of this Rule

III.  Retention

1. Grants & Contracts:  Documentation pertaining to grants and contracts shall be retained up to 7 years after admittance of the final report or final action (unless audit or other legal proceedings require documents to be retained until resolution of the situation), or for the minimum time period required by the award sponsor to retain contract documentation.
2. Bonds: Bond documentation, which includes, but may not be limited to, the closing documents of a bond issuance, continuing disclosures as well as invoices/receipts pertaining to any construction projects, associated with the bond, annual private business use reviews, and any arbitrage calculations must be retained for 3 years after final action.  If a certain bond is refunded with a newer refunding bond, all bond documents related to the original bond should be maintained until 3 years after the final action of the refunding bond.
3. Purchasing: Procurement records include requisition documents, solicitation documents, solicitation responses, purchase orders, procurement contracts, and exceptions to competitive bid requirements. Procurement records shall be kept for 6 years after the end of the project/program/contract.
4. Travel and Reimbursements: Documents such as reimbursement forms, travel receipts, and corresponding credit card statements must be retained by departments for 3 fiscal years plus current year. 
5. Purchasing Card Documents:  Receipts, statements and any other related documentation shall be kept for 7 years. 
6. Tax Documents:  Tax documents such as, but not limited to, sales tax invoices, state or federal withholding, payment or liability documents, unrelated business income documents, and other general tax documents, must be retained for 7 years.
7. Real Property and Capital Equipment:  Documents regarding the purchase and additions to real property and capital equipment, as defined in Policy 3-040, shall be retained for the entire life of the asset and for seven years after the asset retirement.
8. General Financial Documents: General financial documents such as journal entries, activity setup forms, management reports, bank statements and reconciliation, and other financial documents shall be retained for the period set forth by the Utah Division of Archives and Records.
9. Records with elements of two or more categories: Any record which has elements of more than one category (e.g., Travel and Reimbursement charged to Grants and Contracts/ or Purchase Card Documents charged to Grants and Contracts) shall be subject to the longer applicable retention period.
10. Disposal Rule:   Once the specified retention period has passed, financial records shall be destroyed by the department maintaining control, in accord with requirements described in Policy 3-014, unless:
    1. Applicable law requires that the University record be retained for a longer period than described in the retention schedule;
    2. The University record is involved in or expected to be involved in a legal proceeding or audit;
    3. The University record is needed by the originating office to perform current or future activities for which the office is responsible.

[Note: Parts IV-VII of this Regulation (and all other University Regulations) are Regulations Resource Information – the contents of which are not approved by the Academic Senate or Board of Trustees, and are to be updated from time to time as determined appropriate by the cognizant Policy Officer and the Institutional Policy Committee, as per Policy 1-001 and Rule 1-001.]

IV.  Policies, Procedures, Guidelines, Forms and other related resources

A.  Policy 3-014: Financial Record Retention

B.  Policy 3-040: Property Management

V.  References

A.  Reserved

VI.  Contacts

The designated contact officials for this Rule are:

Policy Owners (primary contact person for questions and advice): Office of the Associate Vice President of Financial & Business Services.

Policy Officers: Chief Financial Officer.

These officials are designated by the University President or delegee, with assistance of the Institutional Policy Committee, to have the following roles and authority, as provided in University Rule 1-001:

"A "Policy Officer" will be assigned by the President for each University Policy, and will typically be someone at the executive level of the University (i.e., the President and his/her Cabinet Officers). The assigned Policy Officer is authorized to allow exceptions to the Policy in appropriate cases.... "

"The Policy Officer will identify an "Owner" for each Policy. The Policy Owner is an expert on the Policy topic who may respond to questions about, and provide interpretation of the Policy; and will typically be someone reporting to an executive level position (as defined above), but may be any other person to whom the President or a Vice President has delegated such authority for a specified area of University operations. The Owner has primary responsibility for maintaining the relevant portions of the Regulations Library... .[and] bears the responsibility for determining which reference materials are helpful in understanding the meaning and requirements of particular Policies... ." University Rule 1-001-III-B & E

VII.  History

Published on June 13, 2019