Documentation at enterprises must be retained for a certain time. Storage periods are established by federal laws at the state level and must be strictly adhered to.
The storage period for sick leave in the organization is also established, and it must be strictly observed.
A certificate of incapacity for work is the basis document on which funds are calculated from the social insurance fund. The accrual of these funds is carried out under strict government control and is subject to audits, so these forms must not only be stored correctly, but also destroyed correctly.
The need to store certificates of incapacity for work
All documentation of the organization is closely linked to each other. One paper is issued on the basis of another. There are a number of forms that are not just important, but decisive. These include those securities on the basis of which various payments are made. If the money is paid by the employer from his own funds, then he can justify their payment with a regular order, indicating as a reason, for example, good work or for achieving some results. But when it comes to accruing funds from budgetary organizations, there are serious reasons for this.
One of the most common reasons for paying budget funds to workers is payment for days of incapacity for work. Payments for days spent away from the workplace due to illness are a mandatory social guarantee. This guarantee is carried out in strict accordance with legal requirements.
The basis for receiving disability benefits is sick leave. This is a strict reporting form; it must have all levels of protection and be filled out correctly. Based on it, the employer accrues benefits, which are subsequently repaid from the funds of the Social Security Fund. And, of course, the Federal Social Security Service or other inspection services can request forms for verification at any time. That is why it is necessary to save sick leaves.
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Accounting legislation
Information about the time during which sick leave certificates cannot be destroyed is also mentioned in the Regulations on accounting and reporting (Order of the Ministry of Finance dated July 29, 1998 No. 34n) and the Tax Code.
The Accounting Regulations mention storage periods in paragraph 98. It requires all documents on which accounting is based to be stored for at least 5 years. These include:
- source documents;
- accounting registers;
- accounting statements.
The primary accounting documents include certificates of incapacity for work. Thus, according to accounting rules, sick leave records should be kept for at least five years.
Storage duration
How long are sick leave records kept? This question is extremely important, because in the course of the enterprise’s activities a huge amount of documentation is generated. If you store it all constantly, then after some time it will simply take up all the free space. Storing unnecessary information can also lead to confusion. But how to determine what is needed and what is not?
To determine the storage periods for various documentation, Order No. 558 of 2010 of the Ministry of Culture of Russia approved a List of standard management archival documents. This List lists all documents that must be stored in organizations, and also indicates the duration of such storage.
The storage period for sick leave at the enterprise according to the List is five years. Previously, there was some dissonance in state legislation, and the storage period for ballots was indicated differently in various documentation. For example, Federal Law No. 212-FZ on insurance premiums stipulated that papers related to the payment of insurance amounts should be saved for at least six years. From January 1, 2017, this Federal Law was repealed, and the payment of insurance payments is regulated by the Tax Code of the Russian Federation, and the existing discrepancy was abolished. Today, when determining the storage period for sick leave certificates, you need to focus exclusively on the List.
Basic Concepts
A sick leave certificate is a document that is issued to an employee to confirm the legality of absence from work. Required for citizens who are officially employed. According to Art. 183 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, the employee receives certain guarantees:
- receiving temporary disability benefits;
- retention of official position during the entire period of absence due to illness.
Sick leave and sick leave are identical documents. Regardless of the name, the same rules and regulations apply.
The terms and amounts of payments are fixed by separate federal laws. Strict reporting is required - assignment of serial numbers, fixed registers (journals certified by the seal and signatures of managers, a confirmation with the start and end date of the entries is glued to the back). Cases of sick leave registration:
- Statement of the fact of illness, as a result of which the employee loses the ability to perform official duties;
- The need to look after a close relative (care, including medical care);
- Pregnancy, childbirth, adoption (other similar situations);
- Quarantine;
- Prosthetics in stationary conditions;
- Recovery, sanatorium treatment (up to 24 days);
- Other health-related situations.
Sick leave is issued for dental prosthetics, examination or tests. Usually for one or two days, although a health care provider may provide for longer.
The verdict on a citizen’s temporary incapacity for work is made only by a doctor. Forgery of a document is a violation of current legislation. An employee whose job description specifies the appropriate actions must know the storage period for sick leave in the archive, methods and conditions.
Attention! The company accepts only correctly completed forms, without errors or omissions. Employees need to check the correctness of registration in the medical institution.
Ensuring the safety of sick leave certificates
The organization must ensure the security of both internal and external documentation. For this purpose, enterprises organize their own archive rooms. Only long-term storage documentation is transferred to state archives for storage, and even then after several years.
Papers that are stored for 10 years or less are not transferred to district archives, but are stored locally. For this purpose, temporary archives can be organized both in offices and in a separate room with special equipment.
The accrual of sick leave is carried out by the accounting department, therefore the primary safety of the forms is entrusted to them. As a rule, one employee, most often an accountant, is responsible for maintaining the accrual and further filing of forms.
The documentation folder is formed during the calendar year, and at the end of the calendar year it is stapled and transferred to the organization’s archive. Maintaining archival documentation is also the responsibility of one person who receives the documentation, recording it in the appropriate acceptance logs and assigning it the appropriate number. If necessary, a folder with a binder can be issued to one of the employees under a personal signature.
How to deal with electronic sick leave certificates
From July 1, 2017, in any region of the Russian Federation, not only paper, but also electronic sick leave can be issued. The possibility of registering it and paying disability benefits on its basis is stated in paragraph 5 of Article 13 of the 255-FZ. An electronic certificate of incapacity for work completely replaces its paper counterpart. The rules for such document flow are established by Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation dated December 16, 2017 No. 1567.
To be able to issue an electronic certificate of incapacity for work, the organization and medical institution must be connected to the Social Insurance Unified Information System. It is in this system that the medical institution issues sick leave. In it, the employer fills in the information necessary to calculate benefits.
There is no need to print out and store a paper version of an electronic sick leave certificate. All safety must be ensured by the Social Insurance information system.
Actions if the storage period has expired
The five years indicated in the List begin their countdown from the moment the calendar year to which the bulletin itself refers ends. All this time, documents are stored in one of the most convenient ways for the enterprise. But what to do if the deadline has expired and the audit never requested these documents? Is it possible to destroy them and how to do it?
It is important to read the instructions given in the List correctly. Some accounting documentation must be stored indefinitely before the inspection and for a limited period specified in the List after the inspection. There are other types of papers that do not have such restrictions. Certificates of incapacity for work are kept for five years, regardless of whether they were verified during this time or not.
After the specified period, the forms are destroyed, but this must be done in strict order with established standards. Documents cannot simply be thrown into the nearest trash container.
How many years are sick leave records kept in the organization (2019 - 2020)?
A sick leave certificate confirms that an employee has suffered injuries or illnesses that result in him or her being temporarily unable to perform his or her job. If the duration of treatment for an injury or illness does not exceed 15 days, sick leave is issued by the attending physician; if this period is exceeded, by a special commission formed in the medical institution. The document is a strict reporting form, the procedure for its issuance and execution is regulated by the order of the Ministry of Health “On approval of the procedure for issuing certificates of incapacity for work” dated June 29, 2011 No. 624n.
This is important to know: How to check electronic sick leave through State Services
When an employee presents a sick leave certificate in an organization, the question often arises of what type of document the sick leave belongs to, since both the procedure and the period for its storage/destruction depend on this. After all, a sick leave certificate, on the one hand, is a primary accounting document due to the requirements of Art. 9 of the Law “On Accounting” dated November 6, 2011 No. 402-FZ, since on its basis the organization makes payments to the employee, which is an unconditional fact of its economic activity. On the other hand, it also serves as the basis for paying the employee benefits from social insurance funds - therefore, at the same time it is also an insurance document.
Since insurance and accounting issues are regulated by various regulatory documents, we will consider the requirements of each of them.
Reasons for storing sick leave certificates
Employers of any rank, as well as Individual Entrepreneurs, are required to create conditions for the safety of important documentation. State-issued sick leave sheets are the basis for the accrual of compensation to the employee, and then to the employer from the Social Insurance Fund.
At any time, Fund employees can request forms for inspection for authenticity, since the certificate of incapacity for work is the actual basis for insurance costs. If FSS employees enter an enterprise for an inspection, then they have the right to demand not copies, but originals of certificates of incapacity for work.
The employer’s refusal to provide the forms to FSS inspectors may be regarded as a legitimate refusal to pay compensation to the employer.
This rule is stipulated in the Foundation’s special letter dated 2013 No. 15-03-11/12-7761. It should be noted that in view of the cases of falsification of sick leave, FSS employees are extremely scrupulous about this issue. They may not be satisfied not only with the provision of a copy of sick leave, but also with the way the documentation is stored.
In any case, the employer retains the right to refute the decision of the Social Insurance Fund through the court. It is enshrined in the Determination of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation of 2014 No. 309-KG14-5016.
Conflict situations can be avoided if you comply with all standards for filling out and calculating compensation, as well as for the storage period for sick leave at the enterprise.
Why and how to store sick leave certificates?
When checking the Social Insurance Fund, certificates of incapacity for work will necessarily be examined by employees of this inspection, since these documents confirm the payment of social insurance contributions. After a desk audit, the FSS decides to reimburse the amount of benefits to employers.
If there are no sick leaves, then no reimbursement will be made. Therefore, storing these documents is extremely important.
Sick leave sheets are filed in a separate folder created for this purpose, to which is attached a log of registration of certificates of incapacity for work.
The storage and recording of sick leave has a strict procedure
Any disease reduces a person’s ability to work. That is why the state provides citizens with the opportunity to temporarily stop their work duties while maintaining their job. At the same time, they are paid benefits in the manner and amount established by law. To receive benefits and to justify his absence from work, the employee must provide a so-called certificate of temporary incapacity for work, which is not so easy to obtain. For example, if you are having dental treatment. then you need to remember that a dentist issues sick leave in some cases if there is an appropriate decision from the executive body of the Russian Federation in the field of healthcare.
Certain medical institutions do not have the right to issue certificates of temporary incapacity for work. These include, for example, ambulance stations, blood transfusions, etc. The legislator is no less demanding when it comes to the procedure for drawing up the document under consideration. There is a provision detailing in which columns what information is indicated, how to make corrections, etc. The legislator is no less strict about the procedure for storing and recording sick leave forms.
So, according to current legislation, the production of sick leave forms themselves is provided by the Social Insurance Fund. Medical organizations, be it a hospital in Irkutsk or dentistry in St. Petersburg. receive forms from the regional office of the Fund as needed. To do this, they submit an application in the prescribed form. The order mentioned above does not allow storing a stock of forms that exceeds the quarterly supply of needs.
It is necessary to understand that sick leave forms are a document of strict accountability, and the attitude towards them is special. They are stored in special sealed rooms, with reliable locks in special iron-lined cabinets. They are constantly recalculated, and the resulting amount is reconciled with the balance sheet account.
Doctors receive forms based on the order of the head of the medical organization for reporting. All sheets are stitched in the upper left corner, the spine of which remains after the sick leave certificate is issued to the patient. Then, when the doctor asks for new forms, he will have to hand over every single one.
At the same time, a medical institution, be it a clinic or dentistry. must store them for three years. After this period, they are destroyed, about which a special act must be drawn up.
But what if the doctor made a mistake and “ruined” the sick leave? The law allows amendments and erasures to be made to the certificate of incapacity for work, but only in the prescribed manner and in a certain quantity. If the document cannot be corrected, it is handed over to an authorized person, which is recorded in a special book. It records data on all damaged, lost or stolen forms. At the end of the year, this information is transferred to the territorial branch of the FSS.
The damaged forms themselves are placed in a special folder, the procedure for filing which is also strictly regulated by the Order. They are stored there for three years, after which they are destroyed by a specially created commission. This action is also necessarily accompanied by the drawing up of an act.
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Virtually every organization faces document storage issues. At the same time, in practice, quite often documents are filed in folders, having previously made holes on the documents using a hole punch. Violation of legal requirements regarding the storage of documents is fraught with fines in the event of an audit of the organization’s activities. Therefore, it is important to find out whether problems threaten those specialists who use a hole punch.
Different types of documents are stored in the structural divisions of enterprises or institutions. Legal requirements for these documents vary. Therefore, the issue of their proper storage is also worth considering in the context of the main types of documents.
Statements, explanatory and other documents from employees
Punctures using a hole punch quite often violate the text of the corresponding document, especially if the requirements for its execution are not met. For example, an employee wrote the relevant statement by hand without making the required indentation on the left. However, if the text is not broken (the document can be completely read), then there are no obstacles to such organization of document storage.
Orders for personnel
Personnel orders include administrative documents on the regulation of labor relations between employees and the administration of the organization. Orders for personnel are grouped into files in accordance with the established retention periods. The legislation does not contain a ban on piercing these documents (including using a hole punch). However, there is a general recommendation that is often neglected: all pages of the document are punched with a hole punch symmetrically along the height of the sheet at the same level. If this recommendation is not followed, interested parties may even raise questions about the falsification of the document. Thus, according to the materials of one of the cases, an employee of the organization tried to appeal to the court what, in his opinion, were illegal actions of the employer’s administration. One of the plaintiff’s arguments was that the employer did not familiarize him with the personnel order. When the employer's representative presented the corresponding order with the employee's signature, the latter insisted that the order was forged. After all, the holes from the hole punch on the last sheet (with the employee’s signature) did not coincide with the holes on the 1st and 2nd sheets. Although in this case the court indicated that the above circumstances are not indisputable evidence of the forgery of the order (see Determination of the Lipetsk Regional Court dated 01.06.2011 N 33-1542/2011), it is better to avoid such controversial issues when organizing the storage of documents, especially since judicial practice There is no federal level on this issue. Some courts are more attentive to examining hole punch holes on individual sheets of a document. Thus, in the Decision of the Zavodsky District Court of Orel dated November 23, 2015 N 2-2503/2015, the court considered the fact of forgery of a sheet of document proven on the basis that the sheet with signatures, unlike the rest of the pages of the document, did not have holes made by a hole punch, which, according to the court, indicated its separate production.
Certificates of incapacity for work
A certificate of incapacity for work is a document certifying the fact of the occurrence of a disease, injury or other insured event, which is the basis for the calculation and payment of temporary disability benefits. The current legislation of the Russian Federation imposes special requirements on certificates of incapacity for work.
Results
The minimum storage period for sick leave in a company is 6 years. To increase the efficiency of storing sick leave certificates, an organization can use a separate logbook.
You can learn more about the use of sick leave certificates in a company in the articles:
Organizations and individual entrepreneurs must ensure the safety of documents directly related to their activities and serving as the basis for calculating taxes, contributions, benefits, salaries, etc., for a certain time. So what is the shelf life of sick leave in an organization?
Sick leave register - sample filling
After the sick leave is handed over by the employee to his organization or entrepreneur, the employer is responsible for its storage. But storing any documents is impossible without proper accounting. This article will tell you how to properly keep a sick leave log, a sample of which can also be found in this article.
Accounting for sick leave in an organization
A certificate of incapacity for work is the basis for payment of disability benefits to the employee and at the same time the basis for reimbursement of part of the benefit from the budget of the social insurance fund. As you know, only three days are paid by the employer from his own funds, the rest is paid from the fund. But the organization or entrepreneur must account for this money.
Otherwise, the costs of paying benefits will not be compensated or the funds already received will have to be returned back to the fund. This happens especially often during a desk or field audit of a fund. He checks the availability of certificates of incapacity for work, and if they are absent, the employer risks his money. Another equally popular reason for refusal to reimburse funds paid can only be erroneously filled out sick leave certificates.
What you need to know about issuing sick leave: https://ipshnik.com/rabota-s-kadrami/chto-neobhodimo-znat-o-vyidache-bolnichnogo-lista.html
In order for all sick leave certificates to be in place, it is necessary to correctly keep records of their receipt and properly organize the storage of sick leave certificates in an organization or an individual entrepreneur. A sick leave log will help the employer with this.
It is worth noting that what has been said also applies to those regions that are participating in the pilot project of the Social Insurance Fund. In fourteen regions of Russia, the Social Insurance Fund directly pays disability benefits to employees. Employers do not participate in these payments, with the exception of payment for the first three days of incapacity. The employer is only responsible for calculating the amount of benefits. But accordingly, since sick leaves are received, as before, by the employer, both storage and accounting of these documents are carried out by employers.
As you know, a disability certificate is issued to the insured person - the employee. And, having already received this document, the employee provides it to the employer. As a rule, to the HR department. The deadline for submitting sick leave to the employer is not established as such.
But the law provides a period of six months from the date of recovery for the employee to apply to his employer for disability benefits.
And after this period, the employee will have to contact directly the territorial branch of the Social Insurance Fund, which will decide on the payment of benefits.
As soon as the employee has provided the certificate of incapacity for work to the employer, it must be registered in the journal. It is worth noting that the obligation to maintain such a journal is not provided for by law. But working without it will be quite difficult. Therefore, in almost all organizations and individual entrepreneurs that have at least several employees, such magazines are started. In the future, you will have to refer to this magazine during checks of the social insurance fund and when searching for lost certificates of incapacity for work.
Once sick leave reaches the HR department, it must be recorded in the sick leave register.
As previously stated, the law does not provide for the obligation of employers to maintain such records. And if there is no such obligation, then the legislator will not bother himself with developing a standard form. Therefore, employers faced with the need to record and store sick leave records themselves develop the forms of such logs. They are guided by the general rules of expediency and the specifics of the work of the organization (entrepreneur).
Basic requirements for filling out a sick leave certificate: https://ipshnik.com/rabota-s-kadrami/osnovnyie-trebovaniya-predyavlyaemyie-k-zapolneniyu-bolnichnogo-lista.html
When compiling such a journal, it is recommended to use the following document details and fields to fill out:
On the title page or first page of the magazine:
- name of the organization or full name of the entrepreneur, some basic details,
- start and end dates of logging,
- if a nomenclature of cases is maintained, then the index of this document according to the nomenclature of cases.
Journal page columns are intended for entering the following information:
- Sequential number - the serial number of the sick leave in the journal,
- Date of provision of the certificate of incapacity for work,
- Last name, initials of the employee,
- Position, name of the employee’s structural unit,
- Sick leave number,
- The name of the medical institution that issued the certificate of incapacity for work,
- Start and end dates of disability,
- Number of days of incapacity.
In an organization or entrepreneur where the accounting and registration of sick leave is entrusted to several employees, it is recommended to add the column “Signature of the employee who accepted the sick leave certificate.” But in any case, the contents of the document must be certified by the signature of the responsible employee. Therefore, it is recommended to provide space for such painting on each page.
Destruction of sick leave certificates after their expiration date
At the end of the storage period, the certificates of incapacity for work are destroyed. But this does not mean that they can simply be burned or cut. The following actions must be performed:
- Creation of a commission. A commission must be formed from the company’s employees, which will select expired documents.
- Drawing up an act. Such a document will be required for future inspections or court cases. The act must include the details of all destroyed sick leave certificates.
- Destruction of documents. After following the above procedure, documents can be destroyed in any convenient way (burn, throw away or send for recycling).
Compliance with this destruction procedure is prescribed in Order No. 526 of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation.
Storing certificates of incapacity for work is a mandatory norm, which is enshrined in law. Failure to comply with this norm will lead to difficulties during the FSS inspection.
When can stored sick leave certificates come in handy?
In practice, sick leave certificates stored in a company can be useful primarily when checking contributions to OSS from VNiM. The fact is that a certificate of temporary incapacity for work is one of the main documents certifying the fact that the employer has incurred expenses for transferring benefits to employees during the sick leave period.
The Federal Tax Service also pointed out the legality of tax authorities requesting sick leave to check the calculation of insurance premiums (see letter dated July 10, 2019 No. BS-4-11 / [email protected] ).
In order to increase the efficiency of recording temporary disability certificates, a company can use a separate journal. It may reflect, in particular, the dates of receipt of sick leave by the organization, from which the storage period is counted.
You can learn more about the specifics of the sick leave log in the article “Sample of filling out the sick leave log .
How long is the shelf life of sick leave at an enterprise in 2020?
The act indicates all identification information about the documents that are subject to destruction.
According to legal experts, sick leave payments from the employer do not in any way affect insurance benefits. The Tax Code of the Russian Federation clarifies some points that may seem contradictory.
In Art. 421 provides a list of sources that influence the formation of insurance premiums. These must include those documents that confirm all payments to the employee that he receives directly from the employer.
