Best way forwards for keeping records for tax purposes & password protection

avocado1988

Hello! Given the odd few conversations here and there and a very helpful private message reply too, I just want to see what people's thoughts are on how best to keep tax records - especially for things like regular savers, 1-year fixed rate savings accounts, ISAs etc.

I understand that the level of pedanticism we go to will depend a lot on the type of person that we are and individual personal circumstances - so for me, I've very much a calculated, ideally wanting to be the most organised I can be type of person who likes attention to detail and wants to be as risk-free as I can - but does not always possess the best of knowledge on how to always go about doing this. I just want to gather your thoughts on what my thoughts are as well as what I could be doing differently or better (especially if some of your circumstances may be similar to some of mine)

Edit: Just to confirm I do file a self-assessment return form each tax year.

1.So far I have got a combination of physical and digital records (I want to move towards a fully digital version so that I don't have paper copies lying around home and no one can be snoopy - because I don't know how/where best to store physical interest statements so that they cannot be found - any tips on storing physical papers?)

2. For digital organisation, I currently have a 2026-27 folder.

a) Within this folder, I have a subfolder for all regular savers, a subfolder for all 1 year fixed rate bonds/savings accounts, and a subfolder for ISAs.

b) I then have subfolders in these subfolders for each bank/institution where within another subfolder for each account I have with that bank I save all the PDFs when I open that respective account up. This is because as seen by many top-rate regular savers that have been provided recently, they seem to open and shut these within a day of applying and I get worried that the terms cannot be found (even though Bridlington does a stellar job of this, it just feels nice to be safe too).

c) Within the overview regular saver folder, I have an overall summary spreadsheet with all my regular savers projected amounts on there (assuming I put the maximum allowed in there) which feeds in the cumulative data from each almost identical sheet I have in that Excel workbook for each regular saver I have that pays interest in the current tax year (and the next two tax years given that some are ongoing longer than 12 months). I then update this spreadsheet with a new worksheet for each new regular saver opened up and again update it when I see the date that the funds have arrived in that account.

d) Because I have got so many regular savers and other accounts, I have another spreadsheet that contains all my account details to log in to that particular account.

3. What I'm worried about is how do I go about protecting my digital records?

I suppose there are a few issues I can think about:

a) a digital hack (a suggestion made to me was keep your records on a PC that doesn't connect to the internet which I thought was fantastic - but what if I did not have that option? Does something like Norton Antivirus do the job?) (At the same time I’ve been bad and used AI with some actual personal data to help me work certain things out in savings)

b) a corrupted spreadsheet (I every now and then create a new version of the spreadsheet)

c) I currently make no backups (I don't know how to do this safely to avoid external hard drives/USB sticks lying around the house to be snooped into)

d) I read somewhere that backups in the cloud can also fail (or cloud servers can fail) and having confidential data there isn't ideal - and that there is a regular cost for the cloud?

e) I don't have passwords for any of the folders - I don't know how to best do this (I feel passwords can also be hacked into?)….and also I worry what happens if I forget about that password? (This is because we get asked to change passwords too regularly and different websites requiring different criteria makes this all the more painful to remember). Is it that the whole folder can be password protected for 2026-27? (As it feels painful to password protect each individual file).

f) How regular do backups need to be? I feel if I lost my account details for an account I opened just recently because my account details spreadsheet crashed, how would I go about getting these back? Do I have to call/email the institution/bank itself?

There might even be other questions people think of here on top of these!

I understand that some of these things might be over the top for some but for anyone whose brain is also running crazily like mine haha, any mitigation ideas would be appreciated where possible!

UKTaxHelper

ISAs never need any of this, theyre outside tax so there is nothing to report on them. Banks also send your interest figures to HMRC each year, so unless you file a return it reaches them without you. The certificates are only really worth keeping for when their figure looks wrong.

RacingDriver

For physical security at home you could use a lockable safe or filing cabinet.

On passwords, consider a password manager or using passkeys where available.

For backing up digital records, best practice is the 3-2-1 backup rule. It requires keeping three total copies of your data on two different storage media, with one copy stored off-site. So, for example, you keep one copy on your computer, one copy in the cloud, and a third on an external hard drive or USB stick. The cloud would be the off-site backup, and it doesn't have to cost anything, most offer some storage for free such as Google Drive or Dropbox.

Bigwheels1111

I find a yahoo email is good for backup.

I keep one just for this, Copies of driving licence, CPC card, Passport , V5 & anything else I might need.

avocado1988

Thanks for all the really helpful suggestions so far! I will keep making a note of these to help me narrow down to what I could/should be doing - you are all so great ☺️

dcs34

Couple of thoughts based on my own setup:

• It seems the general consensus is that physical records are probably safer than digital ones, since the only way someone can get access to them is to get access to your house (and most people doing so are more likely to knick your hardware to resell it, than bother scrambling through books finding a password list). Plus it encourages you to use proper passwords rather than making things "easy to remember" (which usually means - easier to guess / brute force).
• I have a safe under the desk with a bit of weight in it that'd be easy for someone to knick. That hopefully stops them bothering to look for the other safe with my actual stuff in it, which is buried deep inside a wardrobe.
• Digital folders make things feel organised, but if you can't remember what you're looking for, just make it harder to search for items. Whereas putting everything into one folder means it is easier to search, and to see what's missing, in one go. Given modern search functions on OneDrive, GoogleDrive, File Explorer are so much better it is easier to do a deeper search of one folder, rather than having to do a quick search in several different places.
• Avoid obvious answers for security questions and, where possible, use 'wrong' information as the answers. For example, anyone who knows me might guess my favourite colour (and they'd probably be correct), but for security questions I tend to use the main colour of each bank's logo as my answer.
• Making back-ups of a single, password protected, offline file with the interest payments, account details etc. and saving the latest version in multiple places is more practical than having backups of every interest certificate, statement etc. across several different digital and physical locations - make your system easy to do, otherwise you'll eventually fall out of the habit.

Yorkie1

I don't bother with folders for accounts for tax years. It would get too confusing for me where they straddle TYs. Instead, I have a s/sheet which I call a statement of assets.

I create a new tab each month where I copy the previous month's tab, rename for this month, and update the values of all the accounts etc. I have a comments column on the right which indicates when opened, when interest due (if not monthly), when matures and when closed.

So I have a historic set of details going back years, which lists old and current accounts as things changed.

I also have a tab right at the end which I call Cashflow, which lists the names of each account and its maturity date (or now, for easy access) in maturity date order, with approximate likely balance on maturity after interest has been added.

Then another s/s in which I have a tab for each tax year, again with accounts listed on the left, and a column for each month of the TY, into which I add interest as it gets paid.

And a third s/s into which I have a tab for each TY for the overall interest amounts paid per year,

In each s/s, the accounts are listed by provider alphabetically.

I have a separate folder per provider, with sub-folders for each account, into which I save the T&Cs on opening and account statements downloaded. This makes it easy to locate the relevant provider and s/s.

Grateful to you for asking the question about password security etc.

Eco_Miser

I have a folder called Budget, with subfolders

• spreadsheets (contains all my live financial spreadsheets)
• old spreadsheets (previous years versions)
• bank statements (downloaded pdfs titled with account code (as used in my spreadsheets), year, month, day if needed) easily searched as needed
• bank correspondence with subfolders for each bank (account T&Cs, etc. as downloaded on or before opening, and other non-statement stuff they send)
• Iweb (everything to do with investments - should really be renamed to SW)
• folders for each organisation taking money by direct debit, and other payees

These are backed-up to external drive occasionally (should be regularly).

I have a password manager (Password Safe), which manages all logon data, including the URL. That data is stored in an encrypted file, of which I have multiple copies on different devices, including USB stick, SD card, external hard drive. It also will encrypt any file securely. Note that you can ZIP an entire folder, then securely encrypt & password protect it. Your operating system may do some of this automatically if asked nicely. The encrypted file can then be stored in external media with no practical way of snooping without the password (which is securely stored in a password manager file, inaccessible without the master password - which I chose carefully to be memorisable but not guessable, and I use frequently, so I do remember it. There's a clue to it in a paper address book, just in case of memory failure.

I have a spreadsheet predicting the daily movements on my accounts, a tab for each month, deriving from tables on other tabs summarising inflows (pensions and investments in my case) and outflows (all the direct debits, and ad hoc payments as they arise), and regular saver and fixed term payments and maturities.

I have a spreadsheet recording the actual movements in all my accounts, one tab(per year) with one transaction per row (date, amount, from, to, description, (and a few columns to help automate it all) 'From' and 'To' use the unique codes for each account, inflow source and outflow destination, including 'INT' as the source of all interest when added to an account.
A second tab holds a summary with a row for each code, summing the inflows and outflows for each code. I don't bother with separate tabs for each account, just the summary.

A third spreadsheet hold annual summaries, built up from the previous one, and the spreadsheet tracking my investments.

This has built up over decades and may be over-complex, but it works for me.

friolento

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82120545#Comment_82120545

I would not rely on what banks report to HMRC in terms of savings interest, dividends and capital gains. I keep my own - digital - records, and use my own records in my Self Assessment.

UKTaxHelper

Joint accounts are where it usually slips, the split HMRC assumes isn't always the split you actually own.

LHW99

I use keypass for password protection (and don't let websites remember passwords or card details.Copies of the database go onto two other PCs / external drives.

I make backups on external drives or blue-ray disks from time to time (not often enough) as I don't like to put too much of my information onto the Cloud.