(a) Payroll sheets, registers, or their equivalent, of salaries and wages paid to individual employees for each payroll period; change slips; and tax withholding statements: Retain 3 years after completion of contract, unless contract performance is the subject of enforcement action.

This subpart prescribes requirements for establishing, maintaining, and disposing of contract files.

(a) Agencies must prescribe procedures for the handling, storing, and disposing of contract files. These procedures must take into account documents held in all types of media, including microfilm and various electronic media. Agencies may change the original medium to facilitate storage as long as the requirements of Part 4, law, and other regulations are satisfied. The process used to create and store records must record and reproduce the original document, including signatures and other written and graphic images completely, accurately, and clearly. Data transfer, storage, and retrieval procedures must protect the original data from alteration. Unless law or other regulations require signed originals to be kept, they may be destroyed after the responsible agency official verifies that record copies on alternate media and copies reproduced from the record copy are accurate, complete, and clear representations of the originals. Agency procedures for contract file disposal must include provisions that the documents specified in paragraph (b) of this section may not be destroyed before the times indicated, and may be retained longer if the responsible agency official determines that the files have future value to the Government. When original documents have been converted to alternate media for storage, the requirements in paragraph (b) of this section also apply to the record copies in the alternate media.

(b) If administrative records are mixed with program records and cannot be economically segregated, the entire file should be kept for the period of time approved for the program records. Similarly, if documents described in the following table are part of a subject or case file that documents activities that are not described in the table, they should be treated in the same manner as the files of which they are a part. The retention periods for acquisitions at or below the simplified acquisition threshold also apply to acquisitions conducted prior to July 3, 1995, that used small purchase procedures. The retention periods for acquisitions above the simplified acquisition threshold also apply to acquisitions conducted prior to July 3, 1995, that used other than small purchase procedures.