Data backup and tax year-end data retention

We outline how long Sage Payroll Professional retains different types of backup data. It includes details for on-demand, period-start and tax year-end backups.

Sage Payroll Professional automatically creates data backups during specific processes. These processes include:

• Starting a new pay period
• importing data
• beginning a new tax year

We store these backups in the cloud and are accessible from the Payroll Subscription screen. You can’t download any backup files to your local device.

The system retains backups for the following durations from the date of creation:

• On-demand backups (created manually during a pay period): One month
• Start New Period backups (automatically created at the start of a new pay period): Two years
• Tax Year-end backups (created when starting a new tax year): Five years
• Tax Year-end instances (used for submission purposes): Ten years

 NOTE: In addition to these backups, Sage also performs daily system backups for disaster recovery purposes.  

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