Where can I get downloadable recordkeeping templates for a small business?

What records are these templates made for?

IRS Publication 583, Starting a Business and Keeping Records, groups the supporting documents a business keeps under gross receipts, inventory, expenses, travel, transportation and gift expenses, employment taxes, and assets. Publication 583 says purchases, sales, payroll and other transactions generate these documents, and names sales slips, paid bills, invoices, receipts, deposit slips and canceled checks among them. Recordkeeping templates are the logs, forms and summary sheets that organize those documents and the entries drawn from them.

Search for the record you need by its name. If you already keep books in accounting software, it may already hold some of these records, so look for templates only for the ones it does not.

Where can you download them, and what does each source offer?

Each class of source supplies something different:

Files from anywhere else, such as software companies, banks or template marketplaces, get the same checks, with extra weight on origin.

Which format fits how you will complete and keep the record?

Choose the format by how the completed copy will be kept:

For paper, Publication 583 tells businesses to keep supporting documents in an orderly fashion and in a safe place; keep completed paper templates the same way. Writing entries legibly in ink is good practice; the legibility condition in Publication 583, set out below, is written for electronic storage.

An editable spreadsheet totals columns and takes new fields, but a stray keystroke can overwrite a formula. Microsoft's help page "Protect a worksheet" says you can lock the cells on an Excel worksheet and protect the sheet with a password to prevent changing, moving or deleting data; use it to guard the formulas in your master. A fillable form holds entries in fixed fields; Microsoft's help on Word forms says you can create a form that others can fill out and save or print.

What does keeping completed copies electronically require?

If you will never print, choose an editable sheet or a fillable form and arrange preservation deliberately. Publication 583 says every requirement for paper books and records also applies to electronic storage systems, which include keeping records by electronic imaging, such as scanned paper, or by transfer to electronic storage media. Publication 583 sets these conditions:

• The system must index, store, preserve, retrieve and reproduce the records in legible format.
• It must provide a complete and accurate record of your data that is accessible to the IRS.
• It is subject to the same controls and retention guidelines as the original paper records.
• Paper originals may be destroyed only once the system has been tested to establish that it reproduces them in compliance with IRS requirements and procedures are in place to ensure continued compliance with all applicable rules and regulations.
• When electronic storage replaces paper, you must maintain the electronic storage systems for as long as they are material to the administration of tax law, and you must still keep any other required records.
• The IRS may test the system, and one that fails these requirements can bring penalties unless you have kept the paper originals in a way that lets you and the IRS determine your correct tax.

Publication 583 points to Revenue Procedure 97-22 for the details. How long records must be kept is a separate question.

How do you tell whether a template fits your business?

Apply three tests before adopting a template:

• Fields. List what the completed record must show, then compare. A template passes only if its completed copy will clearly show the income or expenses it covers, which Publication 583 makes a condition of any recordkeeping system, and has a place to identify the supporting document behind each entry.
• Built-in assumptions. Every template is written for someone, the IRS's own samples included. A sheet written for another state may fix that state's sales tax rate, one written for another country may carry that country's tax columns, and one written for another entity type may use owner or equity headings that do not fit yours. A mismatch is copied into every record kept on the template and is hardest to change once a period of records exists.
• Editability. Check that you can add a column, rename a heading and change a formula. A sheet locked with a password you do not have cannot be adapted, and a page that can only be printed cannot be extended.

What checks come before you open a downloaded file?

A template lands where your financial records live, so check it in this order:

1. Get it from the publisher's own site, reached by typing an address you already know, not through an ad, a pop-up or a link in a message. The FTC's malware guidance says that instead of clicking an ad for software, you should go to the website by typing in the address. The government banner on the IRS recordkeeping page says a .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States; an IRS publication re-posted elsewhere is not the IRS's file.
2. Prefer a file without macros. Microsoft's Learn article on macros from the internet calls VBA macros a common way for malicious actors to gain access to deploy malware and ransomware. If a template asks you to enable macros and you cannot confirm who published it, do not use it.
3. Have security software scan it; the FTC's malware guidance says to set that software to automatically scan new files on your device. A clean scan is not proof: the FTC notes that even with security software, malware might go undetected, at least temporarily, so a clean result never overrides steps 1 and 2.
4. Microsoft's help page on Protected View says files from the internet open as read only or in Protected View, where most editing functions are disabled, and advises editing only if you trust the contents and closing and deleting a file that seems suspicious. That page does not say whether Office for Mac has Protected View. Other apps may have no such mode; there, steps 1 to 3 carry the protection.
5. Only then save it into your records folder as the original you will adapt.

How do you adapt a template and keep one controlled version?

Adapt a copy, never the original download, and keep one master:

1. Keep the checked download unchanged in an originals folder, with a note of where and when you got it.
2. In a copy, rename headings to your terms, add the fields your records need, delete what does not apply, and lock the formula cells.
3. Save the result as a template. Microsoft's help page "Create a template" says saving a file as a template lets you use it as your starting point instead of recreating the file from scratch each time. Where your app has no template file, keep the master read-only and start each record from a copy.
4. Put the version in the file name. Harvard Medical School's file-naming guidance says to use versioning to indicate the most current version of a file; a name such as cash-receipts-master-v03 does that. Whenever you change the master, save it under the next version number (cash-receipts-master-v04) and move the previous version to the archive folder; never save changes over the current version.
5. Keep one master in one place and move superseded versions to an archive folder. Save any later download of the same template, checked as above, to the originals folder, compare it with your master, and carry over only the changes you choose, as a new version, so a fresh download never silently replaces your form.

Leave completed records on the version they were made with rather than reworking old ones to fit a new version.

How does the adoption check work on one candidate template?

A two-owner catering business that keeps its records electronically sees a daily sales log advertised in a search ad. It does not click it: it types the address of a template publisher it already knows, finds a similar log there, scans it, opens it read-only and runs the check:

One failure is enough: the locked formulas rule this file out, and a file from an ad would have been ruled out before it was opened. The business builds the columns it needs, including the document-number column, in a blank sheet of its own and saves that as version 1 of its master.

What turns a completed template into a business record?

A blank template records nothing; the completed copy is the record. Publication 583 does not say how a completed log or form must be marked. Filling every field, dating it, stating its period and naming the business and preparer are practice that keeps each copy traceable, not Publication 583 rules. What Publication 583 says is that you must keep supporting documents, because they support the entries in your books and on your tax return, and keep them in an orderly fashion and in a safe place; a completed template has to trace back to them and be found again. Take these steps for each completed copy:

1. Fill in every field the entry needs, writing "none" or "0" rather than leaving a gap.
2. Date it, state the period it covers, and identify the business and whoever completed it.
3. Give each entry the number or date of the supporting document behind it, and keep that document.
4. File it where you decided before first use, organized as Publication 583 suggests for supporting documents, by year and type of income or expense.
5. For an electronic copy, save it as its own file named with the record, the period and the template version, under the storage conditions above.

A carefully kept blank form with no settled home for completed copies leaves you with no record you can retrieve. How long each completed record must be kept is a separate question.

Why doesn't a template tell you which records you must keep?

A template's fields reflect the audience its publisher had in mind, not your obligations. Publication 583 says that, except in a few cases, the law does not require any specific kind of records, so you may use an IRS layout or any other that is suited to your business and clearly shows your income and expenses, which is what the three tests above check. No template, including the IRS's own samples, defines your set. Publication 583 also says specific recordkeeping rules apply to travel, transportation and gift expenses (see Publication 463) and that there are specific employment tax records you must keep (listed in Publication 15); a generic sheet may meet neither. The IRS recordkeeping page says the business you are in affects the type of records you need to keep for federal tax purposes. Establish which records your business must keep first, as its own question, then choose templates to fit that list and keep any required record no template covers.

What if your trade or license has its own record rules?

Get those rules from the agency that licenses or regulates your business, use its own forms where it publishes them, and treat generic templates as covering only the ordinary bookkeeping part of your records. Do the same with your state's tax agency for any state record rules.