20 Years of PDF/A | webPDF

PDF/A marks two decades of digital long-term preservation and remains one of the most important standards for reliable archiving.

PDF/A marks two decades of digital long-term preservation and remains one of the most important standards for reliable archiving.

Digital long-term archiving is becoming increasingly important for companies. The reasons are not limited to legal regulations and retention periods. Data and documents are more critical than ever. Secure storage is therefore essential to remain future-ready. In Germany, for example, business documents such as invoices and contracts must be archived for up to ten years. In addition, there are industry-specific retention requirements for documents in public administration, hospitals, construction, and other sectors.

"Retention period is the period of time within which documents subject to retention must be archived in an orderly manner." That's what Wikipedia says. What are documents subject to retention requirements in the first place and how long must they be archived? In this article, we answer the most important questions about the statutory retention periods for business documents.