Balancing the requirements of the Accounting Act and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) can be a challenge. The Accounting Act requires accounting information to be kept for a certain period of time (for example, seven years in Sweden), while the GDPR requires personal data to be kept no longer than necessary.
To help you manage this in a secure and automatic way, we are now launching a new feature in Flex HRM Travel. The feature allows you to automatically delete settled travel expenses and mileage logs that have reached the statutory retention period. This reduces the administrative burden and ensures that your company complies with both regulations.
How to set up automatic deletion
Activate the function under Settings > Import/Export > Scheduled task runs. There you select the new type: Deletion of travel expenses transferred to payroll.
Here you specify how old the information should be before it is deleted. You choose the number of years yourself, but the system ensures that you cannot enter a value that is lower than the law in each country requires:
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Sweden: At least 7 years
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Norway: At least 5 years
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Denmark: At least 5 years
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Finland: At least 10 years
You also choose a time for the deletion to take place.
How does the deletion work?
The function works on the basis of the payment date of the travel invoice or mileage log. For example, when you set the run to 7 years, the system will delete records whose payment date fell in calendar years that are 7 years or older.
When a scheduled run is active, it will delete all related data, including:
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Travel expense report (all types) and mileage log
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Attachments linked to the travel expense report
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Imported car trips and credit card transactions
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Information on transfer to payroll and accounting
Full control and traceability with log
To give you full visibility of the process, a log function is available. Once you have selected the scheduled run in the list, a button for Log appears in the menu bar.
The log shows a clear overview of each run, including:
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Date and time of deletion
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Number of deleted travel expenses and mileage logs
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Status (with a green check mark for a successful run)
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Any errors or warnings
This new feature gives you a powerful tool to automate your data management and gives you peace of mind that you are compliant with both accounting and GDPR requirements.
