The law firm Tasić & Partners reminds all clients of the obligation to submit a copy of the archive ledger for the year 2023 to the competent Archive by April 30, 2024, in full compliance with the Law on Archival Material and Archival Activities (“Official Gazette of RS”, no. 6/2020, “the Law“). Specifically, Article 9 of the Law mandates that every creator and holder of archival materials and documentary material is required to deliver a copy of the archive ledger to the competent archive by April 30 of the current year for documentary material created in the preceding year, under threat of sanctions prescribed by the Law, specifically a monetary fine ranging from 50,000 to 2,000,000 dinars for legal entities and from 5,000 to 150,000 dinars for responsible persons within a legal entity.
Economic entities will be able to submit the copy of the archive ledger in paper form only this year, namely only for documentary material created in 2023, since starting from 2024, the archive ledger will exclusively be submitted in electronic form. This requirement does not apply to archive ledgers from previous years, although it is recommended that all archive ledgers created since the founding of the economic entity be submitted to the competent archive via e-archive, so that the system can properly classify and segregate archival materials according to the prescribed retention periods.
We point out that the obligation to submit the archive ledger in electronic form does not affect or introduce a requirement to maintain all documentation in electronic form; rather, economic entities will continue to have the freedom to choose the method of creating and preserving documentary material, in accordance with legal provisions on secure document storage, regardless of the form in which they are created or stored. Regarding documentation that must be created and submitted to competent authorities in electronic form (applications for mandatory social insurance, financial reports, tax returns, registration of limited liability companies, etc.), the obligation of secure storage is transferred to state bodies/agencies in whose operation the said material is created. On the other hand, economic entities are still required to create and maintain certain documentation in paper form, whenever it is prescribed by a specific law (such as, for example, an employment contract).
Finally, considering that access to the e-archive system will be exclusively electronic, individuals who are authorized and responsible for classification, preservation, and archiving of documentary material at the level of the economic entity will be required to possess a valid electronic certificate that will be used to access and upload documents into the system.