How long do you need to keep till slips for SARS?
Five years from the date you submit the tax return they support. That is the standard SARS retention period for supporting documents, and it stretches further if an objection, appeal or audit is still open when the five years run out. The practical problem is not the rule; it is that most till slips are unreadable long before the deadline.
The five year rule, in practice
SARS's record retention policy asks taxpayers to keep the documents behind a return for five years, counted from submission rather than from the purchase date. A slip from March 2026, claimed in a return submitted in October 2026, needs to survive until October 2031. If SARS queries the return, everything relevant must stay until the query is finished, however long that takes.
This applies to individuals claiming deductions, to sole proprietors, and with more force to VAT vendors, where every input claim rests on a document. When a verification letter arrives, the burden of producing the paper is yours.
Slipsort keeps every slip legible for as long as SARS can ask.
Scan in about a second, numbers read for you, one pack per month for your accountant.
Get Slipsort free on iPhonePaper will not last the distance
Almost every till slip in South Africa is printed on thermal paper. The print is not ink; it is dye that darkened under the print head's heat, and it keeps reacting after you leave the shop. Heat, sunlight, the plastic window of a filing sleeve, even the oils on your hands push it back toward blank. A slip stored in a bakkie's cubbyhole can be gone in a season.
SARS accepts electronic copies of records, which turns the problem from preservation into capture: get a legible scan while the slip can still be read, and the five year clock stops mattering.
What a workable system looks like
Scan the slip the day you get it, not at month-end when the oldest ones have already faded. Keep the image at full quality, attached to the numbers it proves. File it under the account it belongs to, so a SARS query about the business does not mean wading through groceries.
Slipsort is built around exactly this: scan in about a second, the merchant, date, total and VAT are read for you, and every image is kept at full quality for as long as your account exists. When a verification letter arrives, the month it asks about is one export.
Quick answers
- Does SARS accept scanned till slips?
- Yes. SARS accepts records kept in electronic form, provided they remain accessible and legible. A clear scan made while the slip was fresh satisfies that far better than a faded original.
- When does the five years start counting?
- From the date the return was submitted, not the date on the slip. A slip can easily need to survive six years or more from the day it was printed.