Business correspondence is a record and sometimes evidence.
WHY IT MATTERS
Contracts and agreements are frequently formed by email Tax and regulatory obligations may require records be kept Disputes usually turn on what was agreed, and email is the evidence
WHAT TO KEEP
Anything contractual, financial or contentious. Customer orders and agreements. Supplier correspondence.
HOW TO ARCHIVE
Connect each mailbox in Thunderbird or Outlook using IMAP, create a local folder, and copy mail into it. That produces a copy on a computer you control, which should be included in whatever backs that computer up.
Do this annually, keeping the current and previous year on the server.
WHERE TO KEEP IT
Somewhere the business controls, not on one person's laptop as the only copy.
WHAT NOT TO DO
Do not delete mail once a dispute is foreseeable. Do not rely on our backups as an archive. Retention is finite and they are a safety net, not a records system.
RETENTION
Decide how long you keep correspondence and apply it consistently. Keeping everything forever is its own risk under privacy obligations.
