Certificate of interest storage

pecunianonolet

Hi,

Just wondering how you deal with all the certificates. Print out and put in a folder, download PDF documents and store on a USB stick?

Guess easy with only a few accounts but I've opened quite a few savings accounts so it's a fair view. That would be a lot of paper if printed and a total waste. The question is more around long term storage, as long as I have an account open I can always request or download if needed but once accounts are closed it becomes a bit more difficult.

I track all interest payments in a comprehensive Excel file and in 99% of the case records match.

Next question, for how long would you need to keep certificates?

jak22

It's wise to have three copies of any important docs, photos, etc, using at least 2 different methods and locations, such as a backup drive or cloud. USB sticks are convenient for transferring between machines but maybe not such a good choice for long term storage.

TheBanker

I store them in the cloud. I create a folder for each tax year and save the certificates of interest, dividend summaries, my P60, my completed Self Assessment tax return and any other relevent documents. When the year's paperwork is complete I back up the folder to another cloud service.

At the end of the day, if I lose these documents for some reason I can always obtain the information from the providers for six years, and after six years it is unlikely I'll need it. 

km1500

I store them on my laptop hard drive

anything that I can't download I take a photo of using my smartphone

wmb194

I don't bother to even look at them let alone keep them.

ChilliBob

Similar to above, cloud storage, one drive in this case, but just need to remoto take a picture of the ones the arrive only on paper.. Which I'm prone to forgetting!

What I find irritating, which has only happened a couple of times, is that online access is cut off once say a fix ends, so you can't login to get the documents and you have to faff asking for them. 

TheBanker

wmb194 said:

I don't bother to even look at them let alone keep them.

I have to, as I need to declare the interest on my Self Assessment return. 

TheBanker

ChilliBob said:

Similar to above, cloud storage, one drive in this case, but just need to remoto take a picture of the ones the arrive only on paper.. Which I'm prone to forgetting!

What I find irritating, which has only happened a couple of times, is that online access is cut off once say a fix ends, so you can't login to get the documents and you have to faff asking for them. 

I agree - I recently closed a credit card and before I did I spent time downloading all the statements. Will probably never need them, but you never know - I might need to prove I paid for something at some point in the future.

in terms of interest, it frustrates me that the banks all report it to HMRC, but HMRC don't show us what's been reported. It would be much better if HMRC produced a consolidated statement once they've got all the figures in - but I appreciate the cost of developing this would not be the best use of HMRC's resources when they don't even have enough people to answer the phone...

wmb194

TheBanker said:

wmb194 said:

I don't bother to even look at them let alone keep them.

I have to, as I need to declare the interest on my Self Assessment return. 

So do I, I take the data from online statements and keep track of it in MS Money which then spits out the numbers at the end of the tax year. I filed my 23/34 SA on Sunday and I’m probably not up to date with all the tax certificates yet but you don’t need them.

slinger2

Personally I don't bother to download stuff about interest. I add them all up and let HMRC know. HMRC gets sent the same information from these companies, so it all seems like a waste of time really. I assume that if the two totals vaguely match then HMRC is happy.

I'm more worried about CGT. Shares I bought 20 years ago, dividends, etc.

pecunianonolet

Thanks all for the answers, very helpful. So far I only cross checked the statements with my own records to ensure it all matches.

 TheBanker said:

in terms of interest, it frustrates me that the banks all report it to HMRC, but HMRC don't show us what's been reported. It would be much better if HMRC produced a consolidated statement once they've got all the figures in - but I appreciate the cost of developing this would not be the best use of HMRC's resources when they don't even have enough people to answer the phone...

You can phone HMRC and request an overview and you get detailed reporting's for each individual account with account number, interest, etc. 

I did request for tax year 22/23 and the numbers are different to my own recordings and their overview doesn't make any sense. Especially some challenger/app only banks didn't report anything. In the end, their underreporting led to the fact that my tax code adjustment is lower as it should be even if it is only out by a few pounds. However, if the interest statements received this year state one number but reporting now suddenly includes the missing amounts of last tax year then my tax code adjustment will be wrong again. 

My concern is that they ask at some point for all the interest statements as it could get messy to sort out, hence my initial request how people store them. With > 40 accounts it's going to take some time.