Can I throw away original receipts after scanning?

Thermal till slips fade. Wallets fill up. The useful question in South Africa is not “is paper sacred?” — it is whether SARS will accept a digital copy if you ever have to show the record. This guide cites SARS’s own record-keeping page and the Tax Administration Act. It is not tax advice.

What SARS actually says about keeping records

SARS’s record-keeping page explains the duty in the Tax Administration Act 28 of 2011 (TAA). You must keep records, books of account or documents that let you observe a tax Act, that a tax Act specifically requires, and that let SARS be satisfied you complied. The people in scope include someone who submitted a return, someone who should have submitted one, someone who received income or had a capital gain or loss or engaged in a taxable activity even without a return, and someone who would have had to submit but for an exemption or threshold.

Section 29 of the TAA is the duty to keep records. Section 30 covers the form of those records. Section 31 says they must be open for inspection in the Republic. You do not have to memorise the section numbers; you do have to treat “I deleted everything because the app has a thumbnail” as a real risk if SARS later asks for the supporting document.

How long: the five-year clock, not a vibe

On the same SARS page, retention is generally five years, counted from the relevant event:

• If you submitted a return: five years from the date of submission, running to the last day of that period.
• If you were required to submit and have not: the clock is described from submission when it eventually happens — waiting does not shrink the duty.
• If you have been notified that records are subject to audit, objection or appeal: keep them until that process is finished, even if five years has already run (TAA section 32 sits next to section 29 for this).

Household grocery slips you will never claim are not the same as a VAT vendor’s input-tax file. If a slip might support income tax, VAT, CGT on a home improvement, or a deduction, treat the five-year (or longer) rule as the default and ask a practitioner before you shred a class of documents. SARS’s page is the official overview; your facts still matter.

Paper vs electronic: original form, or a prescribed electronic form

SARS states that records must be kept in their original form, in an orderly fashion, in a safe place, and open for inspection, audit or investigation. They can be kept in electronic form as prescribed by the Commissioner by public notice.

That public notice is Government Notice 787 of 2012, issued under TAA section 30(1)(b): the electronic form of record keeping. In short, an “acceptable electronic form” is one where:

• the integrity of the electronic record meets the standard in section 14 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act (the record is complete and unaltered in the legally relevant sense);
• you can, within a reasonable period when SARS requires it, provide access — historically that has meant being able to produce copies SARS can read and analyse, not “the phone that died last year.”

GN 787 also expects adequate storage for the whole retention period: the media, the passwords or keys needed to open encrypted files, and a way to get into encrypted records. Electronic records are expected to be kept at a place physically located in South Africa, unless a senior SARS official authorises another location. SARS’s record-keeping page tells you to complete the application and email ElectronicRecords@sars.gov.za if you need to keep electronic records outside South Africa or in a different form.

Cloud storage in another country is therefore not a casual “the app is convenient” decision for a vendor who must satisfy GN 787. Personal consumers who are not keeping a formal tax file still benefit from a backup they can export, but vendors should not assume a foreign cloud folder is automatically an acceptable electronic record. That is a practitioner-and-SARS-authorisation question, not a slogan.

What a “true copy” of a till slip needs to be

SARS’s electronic-records rules are about integrity and access. For a till slip, the practical test is: if an auditor asked “show me the document for this amount,” could you produce a complete, legible image that still shows the vendor, the date, the total, and — where it mattered — VAT? Cropping to the total, photographing a crumpled corner, or keeping only a spreadsheet row fails that test even if the app extracted numbers.

Ai Receipt Scanner keeps the original image next to merchant, date, VAT, line items, and total so you can open the slip later. That is useful. It does not make us a substitute for SARS’s prescribed form, a South African storage location, or advice on whether your activity is in scope of TAA section 29. AI Insights can help you find which slips belong to a month or a merchant; the image is still the evidence.

For VAT vendors, a till slip is not always a full tax invoice. SARS’s tax invoices page is the source for what must appear at each value threshold. We cover that in VAT on South African till slips.

When you should still keep the paper

Even if a scan is excellent, keep originals when the paper itself is the instrument or the counterparty said so:

• Deeds, stamped certificates, and other documents where the physical original is the legal artefact.
• Warranties or insurers that still demand the physical till slip — read the policy, do not assume a JPEG is enough.
• Anything already in a SARS audit, objection, or appeal — do not destroy the paper copy you still have.
• High-value assets where the other party’s process is paper-first until they say otherwise.

For everyday groceries, fuel, and dining you are keeping only for your own budget, a verified scan plus a backup is usually enough for your purposes. For anything that might go to SARS, use SARS’s rules, not a blog’s confidence.

The risk of keeping only paper

Thermal paper fades in months in a hot car. Flood, fire, and a cleaned-out drawer destroy evidence faster than a forgotten cloud password — but a forgotten password also destroys evidence. The resilient pattern is: capture while the slip is still black, verify merchant/date/VAT/total against the image, store in a system you can export, and know where the files live for five years if they are tax records.

If you want a habit, scan at the till or the same evening. Our faded thermal guide is damage control, not a plan.

A practical checklist

1. Decide whether the slip is “budget only” or “might support a return.”
2. Capture the full slip, not a cropped total.
3. Check vendor, date, VAT, and total against the image.
4. Keep the image for the retention period that applies to you (SARS: typically five years from the relevant date if it is a tax record).
5. If you are a vendor keeping electronic records, read GN 787 and SARS’s page on location and authorisation — do not guess.
6. Shred paper only after you are satisfied the digital copy is complete, and never during an open SARS matter.

Related: how long to keep receipts, VAT on till slips, ask your receipts a question.

General information only, not tax, legal, or accounting advice. SARS pages and notices can change. Check sars.gov.za/client-segments/record-keeping and a registered practitioner for your facts.