Compliance Records
Building a Five-Year Trade Document Retention Workflow
Practical file-organisation habits for retaining invoices, permits, transport documents and shipment evidence in a retrievable form.
Create one shipment file
Keep the final invoice, packing list, transport document, permit, licence, origin record, delivery evidence and key correspondence together. A consistent shipment reference helps operations, finance and compliance teams retrieve the same record.
Control document versions
When an invoice or packing list changes, mark the superseded version and record whether the permit or manifest was amended. Avoid storing several files with identical names and no indication of which one was used for declaration.
Make retrieval part of the process
Retention is useful only when records can be found. Use standard folders, file names, access controls and close-out checks. Recurring clients can also keep product master information separate from shipment-specific records.
