Closing your company
Disposing of old business records: ask two questions first
Paper sits in storage, an old server gathers dust under a desk, a shared drive has gone unpaid, and you want to clear the lot.
Two checks come first. Does anybody still need the records, and could any of them be licensed before they disappear?
In this guide
01
Step one: check who still needs them
The IRS suggests confirming that insurers, creditors and others no longer need records before disposal. Its retention periods begin at 3 years and, for some records, never end. See how long to keep records.
Write a brief log listing what you kept, what you destroyed, the date and who signed off. Should questions come up later, it settles them quickly.
02
Step two: set aside what a buyer would want
AI buyers seldom care about paper invoices or bank statements; the digital workspace is what they want. In SimpleClosure's data, closing companies used Slack 95% of the time, Google Drive 87% and GitHub 82%.
Some material is off limits. SimpleClosure excludes sensitive HR and health files, so mark them before any copying, sampling or destruction.
03
A safe order of work
- 1Confirm retention needs with your accountant
- 2Keep digital accounts paid until a buyer has looked
- 3Flag sensitive records: HR, health, payment card data
- 4Get a buyer's assessment of the workspace
- 5License what sells, then securely destroy what you no longer need
Paper with personal information should be shredded and drives securely wiped by a certified service. More in before you shred.
FAQ
Questions, answered
Should I shred everything once the retention period ends?
Check with creditors, insurers and your accountant first, and have the digital workspace assessed. Old email and Slack may be worth licensing.
Do AI buyers want paper records?
Rarely. They want digital working records: email, chat, docs, tickets and code.
Find the buyers that fit your company
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Keep reading
Sources
Every number on this page links back to one of these.
- 1IRS: how long should I keep records?irs.gov
- 2SimpleClosure: what your startup's assets are worthsimpleclosure.com
- 301net: SimpleClosure AssetHub on track to return $10M to venture-backed startups01net.it
- 4Pewter Datapewterdata.com
- 5aitrainer.work: selling a closed company's dataaitrainer.work
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