Compliant Management of Accounting Archive Digitalization: Helping Enterprises Achieve Safe and Efficient Development Goals

"Accounting Law of the People's Republic of China" (hereinafter referred to as the "Accounting Law") is the fundamental norm of China's accounting work, and has played an important role in regulating accounting behavior, providing accounting information, strengthening financial and economic management, preventing risks, safeguarding national financial and economic discipline and public interests, and giving play to the decisive role of the market in resource allocation.

Accounting archive management is an important part of accounting work. In this newly revised Accounting Law, certain adjustments have also been made to accounting archive management. The original provision, "Each unit shall establish archives for accounting vouchers, accounting books, financial accounting reports, and other accounting materials, and properly preserve them. The retention periods and destruction methods for accounting archives shall be formulated by the finance department of the State Council together with relevant departments," was revised to, "Each unit shall establish archives for accounting vouchers, accounting books, financial accounting reports, and other accounting materials, and properly preserve them. Strengthen the security management of accounting information. The specific management measures for accounting archives shall be formulated by the finance department of the State Council together with relevant departments," emphasizing the importance of enterprises establishing archives and properly preserving accounting vouchers, accounting books, financial accounting reports, and other accounting materials.

Facing the latest revision of the Accounting Law, enterprise accounting archives management personnel should consider formulating response strategies from the following key areas:

▪ Understand and comply with regulations:Enterprises should promptly understand and study the specific provisions of the new Accounting Law and the Measures for the Management of Accounting Archives (Order No. 79 of the Ministry of Finance and the National Archives Administration) to ensure compliance in accounting archives management.

▪ Establish or update management systems:According to the requirements of the new Accounting Law, establish or update the enterprise's internal accounting archives management system, and clarify the processes and responsibilities of archives management.

▪ Strengthen technical support:Strengthen the application of information technology in electronic accounting archive management, such as using encryption technology, access control, and other means, to ensure archive security.

▪ Train employees:Train finance and archives management personnel to improve their awareness and capability in accounting archives management.

▪ Periodic review and evaluation:Periodically inspect and evaluate the management and storage of accounting archives to ensure compliance with the latest regulatory requirements.

▪ Establish emergency plans:Formulate emergency plans for situations such as loss or damage of accounting archives, ensuring rapid response and measures to reduce losses.

▪ Use professional services:Consider using external professional services, such as accounting information system suppliers and archive management consultants, to help enterprises improve their accounting archive management level.

In this revision of the Accounting Law, a new provision was also added: "The state shall strengthen the development of accounting informatization and encourage the lawful use of modern information technology to carry out accounting work; the specific measures shall be formulated by the finance department of the State Council together with relevant departments."

As early as 2015, China made clear through the "Measures for the Management of Accounting Archives" that "electronic accounting materials formed internally by a unit and electronic accounting materials received from outside may, when certain conditions are met, be archived and preserved solely in electronic form," marking recognition at the policy and regulatory level of the legal validity of electronic accounting archives.

As the newly revised Accounting Law further strengthens policy support for accounting informatization, and with the widespread application of fully digitalized e-invoices in daily enterprise operations, we have reason to believe that the informatization of enterprise electronic accounting archives has become an irreversible trend.

This transformation not only meets the requirements of the times, but also provides enterprises with more efficient and safer accounting management tools, indicating that the digital transformation of the accounting industry is accelerating.

Kailing Technology as a business-finance-tax management digitalization service provider, it is recommended that enterprises consider and plan their electronic accounting archives informatization construction from several aspects: archive compliance assurance, archive archiving organization, data standard implementation, information system integration, and institutional and regulatory development.

▪ Archive compliance assurance

The legal attributes of electronic accounting archives require the implementing enterprise to possess strong professional management capabilities for electronic accounting archives, ensuring that the full lifecycle management of electronic accounting materials—from generation, collection, organization, preservation, utilization, to disposal—complies with the Archives Law of the People's Republic of China, the Electronic Accounting Archives Management Specifications, and other relevant laws and regulations, safeguarding the authenticity, integrity, usability, and security of electronic accounting archives.

▪ Archive Filing Review

The core of electronic accounting archives construction is to comprehensively collect and preserve accounting materials with preservation value in the enterprise's business process. It requires the enterprise itself to have extremely strong internal control capabilities for business and financial management, and to complete a comprehensive review of internal financial processes and business processes in the early stage of application construction, clarifying business processes and related review elements, the scope of archiving, attachment requirements, business management specifications, and other content, ensuring the reasonable and comprehensive collection of electronic accounting materials.

▪ Data standard execution

The construction of electronic accounting archives involves standardized and normalized processing of relevant accounting information on various enterprise information systems, such as: layout file generation, metadata collection, four-qualities testing, metadata, data interfaces, and other standards. It requires the electronic accounting archives application construction team to have extensive experience in electronic accounting archives construction and to be able to provide reasonable suggestions based on the enterprise's actual situation to ensure effective project implementation.

▪ Information system integration

Electronic accounting archives data comes from different information systems. Electronic accounting archives construction requires integrated integration of the enterprise's involved information systems to achieve standardized processing, online circulation, and associated collection of all business documents for accounting materials, while ensuring data transmission security and ensuring that accounting materials are authentic and valid.

▪ System and standard development

Electronic accounting archives are an emerging matter. In the process of application promotion, there are a series of related issues such as changes in archive content, changes in archiving processes, changes in management models, changes in job responsibilities, and changes in operating habits, requiring enterprises to establish a complete set of systems and specifications for constraints to ensure the security and compliance of electronic accounting archives. If system and specification construction is incomplete or implementation is not rigorous, it is easy to bring management risks to the reliability and integrity of archives.

With the revision of the new Accounting Law and the continuous advancement of accounting informatization, enterprise accounting archive management is facing new challenges and opportunities. In the face of these changes, enterprises must take proactive measures to ensure the compliance, security, and effectiveness of accounting archives. In addition, the informatization of electronic accounting archives is not only an innovation of traditional archive management methods, but also an important path for enterprises to improve operational efficiency, reduce risks, and enhance competitiveness. By ensuring archive compliance, sorting out archive filing, implementing data standards, achieving information system integration, and building systems and norms, enterprises can ensure the authenticity, completeness, and usability of accounting materials while laying a solid foundation for future sustainable development.

Kailing TechnologyHas matureElectronic accounting archives products, extensive experience in electronic accounting archives implementation and delivery, professional expertise in electronic accounting archives, and consulting capabilities in internal control of enterprise archive-related financial business management, can provide professional and reasonable suggestions from a professional perspective, combined with the current state of enterprise informatization management.For detailed content on electronic accounting archives and comprehensive archive management solutions, please consult Kailing Technology:https://www.kailingteck.com/h-col-110.html 。

As a comprehensive business-finance-tax digitalization solution service provider, Kailing Technology provides business-finance-tax management digital transformation products and operational services for various government agencies, institutions, and large, medium, and small enterprises. The product line includes:

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