• GENERAL DISPOSAL AUTHORITY:
  FINANCIAL AND ACCOUNTING RECORDS

The Financial and Accounting Records General Disposal Authority (hereafter GDA) has been developed for the use of public offices wishing to dispose of records legally. Information about using the GDA is contained in the General Disposal Authorities Implementation Guide, which should be consulted before the GDA is implemented. The Guide outlines the processes for public offices to follow when implementing the disposal recommendations in the GDA, and gives advice on other recordkeeping issues such as access and transfer.

This GDA does not cover records that relate to a public office’s primary duties and responsibilities. For some examples, see section 8 of the Implementation Guide. Before applying this GDA, public offices will need to ascertain which of their records reflecting primary duties or responsibilities fall outside its scope. If you have any queries about this, please contact the Appraisal Section at appraisal@archives.govt.nz.

Please note that if a public office has an agency-specific continuing disposal authority relating to the same records covered by this GDA, then the existing disposal authority should be considered the legal authority. If the public office has no agency-specific disposal authorities relating to such records, then this GDA should be considered the legal authority. If the public office signed up to this GDA under the former Archives Act, then this GDA remains the authority. For further information or advice, please contact the Appraisal Section.

The disposal authorisations are:

• Retain as public archives = transfer to the control of the Chief Archivist at the end of the public office retention period, or any period of agreed deferral of transfer.
• Destroy = destruction to be carried out in a secure manner. It is not mandatory to destroy records at the end of the retention period" the records may be retained for longer.
• Retain for appraisal = arrange for the records to be appraised and refer the Appraisal Report to the Appraisal Section at Archives New Zealand.

These general instructions apply to the entire authority:

• This authority covers all records, including paper and electronic formats. Under the Public Records Act 2005 a public record is, briefly, a record created or received by a public office in the conduct of its affairs, while a record is information that is compiled, recorded or stored in any format.
• Records examples are only representative of records types, and are not an exhaustive list.
• The onus is on each agency to establish its legal obligations for records retention. Primary legislation covering Financial and Accounting records is cited in the "Agency Retention Period" column of the authority. However, this GDA does not provide a definitive identification of record retention requirements under statute or statutory regulation.
• If you think that a record marked for destruction ought to be preserved permanently, DO NOT DESTROY IT. Contact the Appraisal section of Archives New Zealand to arrange for the record to be assessed.
• All records created prior to 1946 must be retained for appraisal.

A valid disposal authority is not a defence or excuse for destroying or otherwise disposing of records for a fraudulent or illegal purpose.