---
id: KB-LE-021
url: https://app.codecontract.io/help/legal/the-firm-holding-its-clients-records
idioma: en
categoria: sector-legal
subcategoria: despachos
audiencia: usuario
nivel: avanzado
actualizado: 2026-08-13
tambienEn: [es]
relacionados: [KB-LE-003, KB-LE-011, KB-LE-026]
citadoPor: [KB-LE-022, KB-LE-029, KB-LE-033]
---

# The firm holding its clients' records

_You hold the papers of two hundred companies and none is yours. That makes your archive the problem, not the solution._

**Responde a:** accountancy firm holding client records · how long do i keep a clients documents · adviser liability for the archive · what if i lose a clients documentation

Your archive is the documentary memory of two hundred companies that are not you. That position has an obvious advantage —you hold everything— and a risk rarely sized properly: **a problem in your archive is not one problem, it is two hundred at once**.

## The four questions that reach a firm

| Who asks | What they want | What answers it |
| --- | --- | --- |
| A client | Their documentation, now | Knowing what you hold of theirs and where |
| A departing client | Everything of theirs | A procedure, not a negotiation |
| An authority | Something about one client | That client's file, not the firm's |
| **The client, years later** | **Something from when they were a client** | **The retention policy you set** |

> [!IMPORTANT]
> **The question you must be able to answer at any time is «what do I hold of this client and why do I hold it?».** It is not about tidiness: it is what separates custody from hoarding. A firm that keeps everything just in case carries more risk, not more service — every extra document is one to protect, justify and eventually delete, and multiplied by two hundred clients it becomes the firm's largest exposure.

## What is worth settling, and almost nobody has

1. **What is kept per client and for how long** — Written once and applied to all, not decided case by case.
2. **Who in the firm may open what** — «Everyone sees everything» stops being sustainable past a few clients.
3. **What is handed over when a client leaves** — In what format and by when. Before the first one leaves.
4. **And what happens to a client who disappears** — The awkward case, and commoner than it sounds.

> [!WARNING]
> The specific risk of this position, and the worst to handle: **the client believes you hold everything, and you believe they hold their own**. Both are wrong simultaneously. They kept no copy because «the firm has it» and you kept only what your engagement required. When a question arrives about something outside that engagement, nobody has it. Stating in writing what you keep and what you do not, at the outset, avoids that entire conversation.

> [!NOTE]
> What documentation a firm must retain, for how long, what confidentiality and data-protection duties apply and what must be handed over on ending an engagement depends on the subject matter, professional rules and data-protection law. **Your professional body or adviser settles that**; here we cover the organisational part that decides whether you can answer.

**Do I return everything to a departing client?**

Theirs, yes — and have the procedure written before you need it.

**Can I keep a copy?**

It depends on the subject and applicable period. Set it once for everyone.

**What if the client says they hold nothing?**

Which is why it pays to state at the outset what you keep and what they must.

## Ejemplos

**A client asks for their documentation and what is held has to be reconstructed.**

- Keeps an index per client of what is retained and why

→ The handover is prepared in hours rather than days.

**The firm keeps everything «just in case» for two hundred clients.**

- Sets a retention policy and applies it to everyone alike

→ Exposure falls without losing anything that must be held.

**A client leaves and the handover is negotiated on the fly.**

- Has it written down what is handed over, in what format and by when

→ Departure is a procedure rather than an argument.

**A question arrives about something never within the engagement and nobody holds it.**

- States at the outset what the firm keeps and what the client must keep

→ Each side retains their own, knowingly.

**The whole team can open every client's folders.**

- Restricts who opens what according to the engagement they work on

→ Sensitive material stops being within reach of those who do not need it.

**A client disappears and their documentation sits ownerless in the archive.**

- Decides beforehand what happens in that case and documents it

→ The archive stops accumulating files nobody can claim or delete.