Good Day All;

How long do you generally keep your cake order forms? I have over 3 years worth of forms, it's overwhelming...

Thank you

I would think you wouldn't need to keep them any longer than a year, and that would be the absolute most. Any potential issues that would need resolved in regards to a specific order should definitely be brought up within a short amount of time after the order is complete. HTH!

ETA: It also helps if you have email and/or computer records of the order forms, which would help eliminate the need for keeping them, and takes up a lot less space!

We don't really have "order forms", the order details are transcribed to a Word invoice ASAP and are kept indefinitely. Since we use gmail it's very simple to just search for a customer's name and get a list of all conversations, invoices, and contracts associated with that customer in seconds.

The only paper we keep is the signed contract and invoice, and those are filed away.

I have 14 years worth of contracts. But I'm a packrat. I have had situations where I had to go back and find contact info for brides from years ago when media requests came in, though, so it's come in handy.

I'm glad I held on to mine. I had a birthday cake ordered last week.
"Can I have the same flavor you make for Val's wedding?"
"Uh...( that was over a year ago!)...yes, I'll look it up and put it on your form."
Yep. Pays to keep them on file.

mommachris

Weddings get an email file and a PC file. The email file is kept for about 6 months after the wedding, the PC file (which includes list of flavors, copy of order write up, etc) is kept forever.

Party orders are on paper only and completed ones go in a box in the office. When the box gets full, the bottom half gets shredded which gives it 4-6 months in there. If they haven't had a problem by then I'm pretty sure they;re not going to. Sometimes people come in asking what they had for so-and-so's birthday last year but I can't keep track of all that with the volume that we do.

I use the cake boss software and it keeps all the history which is one of the perks.

Anyone have an opinion on the need to keep invoices indefinitely in case of an IRS audit or am I being paranoid?

The statute of limitations for an audit is 3 years in most cases, so you can probably shred invoices after that long.

Jason: because I use junky hotmail and I there's a limit on folders. I guess I could combine them all into one "old weddings" file and now that you mention it I might - I just never thought of it before.

Thank you all for your responses this is good information, now I can formulate a plan. I have had customers come back, ask for the same flavor of cake as the previous year, look it up and walah!

I'll go one from here,

Thank you,
Gavi