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Texas Payroll/Personnel Resource

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Required Documentation
Retention of Supporting Documents for Audit

A state agency must maintain documentation in its files to support the legality, propriety and fiscal responsibility of each payment resulting from a payroll document if the payment is made out of the agency’s funds. The documentation must be maintained even if the Comptroller’s office does not require the agency to make it available to the Comptroller’s office.

A state agency’s supporting documentation must satisfy both of the following requirements:

  • The supporting documentation for a payroll document must be maintained in agency files at least until the end of the second appropriation year after the appropriation year the document is processed in. For example, an agency would be required to maintain in its files throughout appropriation year 2024 supporting documentation for all documents processed in appropriation years 2024, 2023 and 2022. Any state or federal statute, regulation or rule that requires the documentation to be maintained in agency files for a longer period prevails over the preceding two sentences.
  • The state agency whose funds are used to make a payment is responsible for maintaining the supporting documentation for the payment. A state agency is solely responsible for complying with any requirement of the Comptroller for the agency to make supporting documentation available to the Comptroller. The Comptroller is not required to search the agency’s files for the documentation, determine which documentation corresponds with which payroll document or transaction, or otherwise organize or sort the documentation. If the agency does not make supporting documentation for a particular payroll document or transaction available to the Comptroller according to the Comptroller’s requirements, then the Comptroller may reject the document or transaction or deem any payment resulting from the document or transaction to be unsubstantiated or erroneous.

The preceding supporting documentation requirements also apply to any supporting documentation that a state agency maintains electronically.

Source

Texas Government Code, Section 403.071.