Sales and Use Tax Records (Publication 116)
Detailed Records

The level of required detail varies by industry. In any case, the CDTFA must be able to determine the date of the sale, what you sold, all taxable and nontaxable charges, and how much tax was applied to the sale. Individual sales invoices should generally include the date, customer’s name and address, shipping address, type of product, quantity sold, sales price, any shipping charges, and the amount of tax. But if, for example, you operate a grocery store whose original sales records are register tapes, you obviously will not have that much detail for each sale.

If you have made nontaxable sales, it is important to keep documents to verify that tax did not apply. Such documents include resale certificates, exemption certificates, shipping invoices, bills of lading, and so forth. For more information on documenting sales for resale, please see publication 103, Sales for Resale. If you make other kinds of nontaxable sales, please check with us regarding required documentation.

Your sales and use tax records can be in paper or electronic form or kept on storage media such as removable disks or film. If you keep electronic or film records, you need to make sure that you will be able to print them for us upon request. For more information on requirements for records kept in electronic form or on film storage media, see Regulation 1698, Records.