"When invoice PDFs arrive from business partners by email, both accounting and sales staff save them inside their personal Gmail accounts or on their individual PC desktops. To be honest, as a company we have no grasp of what is where." This was a consultation we recently received from a business executive running a company with about twenty employees. Several years have passed since storing data for electronic transaction documents became mandatory. Once the reality of a tax audit looms, storing files individually and haphazardly like this can trip you up.
Even so, adopting an expensive, brand-new accounting system just for this single requirement is excessive for many SMEs. In fact, you can realistically satisfy legal requirements using Google Drive within the Google Workspace subscription you already have. In this article, we specifically describe how to set up electronic transaction storage under the Electronic Bookkeeping Act with Google Drive, from our perspective of partnering through custom development and support.
Why simply putting files in folders is not enough
The first point to grasp is that what the law requires for storing electronic transaction data is not simply "keeping it without discarding it." Broadly speaking, two things are demanded: ensuring that files cannot be tampered with (authenticity) and ensuring that they can be retrieved later (visibility and searchability).
With PDFs buried in Gmail inboxes or files placed on individual PC desktops, dates and amounts can be altered later, and files become inaccessible once an employee resigns. This is precarious from both authenticity and visibility standpoints. Believing you are storing them safely does not mean you are meeting the actual requirements.
SMEs should first leverage the relaxed search requirements
What proves effective for many SMEs here are relaxation measures based on company scale. For businesses whose sales during the base period are 50 million yen or less, if data can be downloaded and presented upon request by an auditor during a tax audit, the mechanism allowing searches by date, amount, and business partner (search requirements) is exempted.
In other words, you do not need to build a dedicated search system; in most cases, simply defining a folder structure and file naming rules is sufficient. Quite a few companies assume that "a searchable system is required" without understanding this rule, ending up making unnecessary investments. Confirming which relaxation measure applies to your company is the initial step to keeping costs down.
Specific measures to meet requirements with Google Drive
So how should you set this up with Google Drive? The key lies in utilizing shared drives. By saving documents to a shared drive as company assets rather than individual My Drive spaces, you prevent accidents where data disappears along with departing employees. In addition, by restricting edit and deletion permissions on the administrator side so only administrative staff can add files to designated folders, you help guarantee authenticity.
Folders and file names should be established uniformly as follows.
| Item | Rule Example |
|---|---|
| Folder Structure | Segment by year and month, such as 電子取引 / 2026年 / 07月 |
| File Name | Date_Amount_Partner_Details, such as 20260702_120000_〇〇商事_請求書 |
| Storage Location | Fixed to a shared drive rather than an individual My Drive |
If you strictly enforce this naming convention, you can locate the target documents via the Drive search box using dates or partner names, even if the relaxation measure cannot be used. We also cover confidential file location management in our article on Drive AI classification and labels, as well as pitfalls regarding accidental deletion and departing employee data in our backup article.
Case study: Incorporating Gmail attachments saved individually into the monthly closing workflow
Here is a specific example (the company name is withheld). A company where employees were individually storing invoice and receipt PDFs in their personal Gmail accounts or local PCs consulted us, asking whether they would be safe if an audit occurred. Upon conducting interviews, we found a precarious situation: documents from the same vendor were duplicated across multiple PCs, while for other months no one had saved anything at all.
Therefore, we prepared a 電子取引 / 年 / 月 folder on a shared drive and distributed the file naming rules summarized on a single sheet of paper. Furthermore, we incorporated saving to the electronic transaction folder into the monthly closing checklist, creating a workflow where missing records become immediately noticeable before the closing is completed. What worked was neither a new tool nor voluminous procedural manuals, but establishing where and under what names to store files, and embedding that directly into the monthly workflow.
Rules for location and naming should be established first
Pay attention to the sequence. Although people tend to brace themselves when dealing with the Electronic Bookkeeping Act, SMEs do not need to install massive document management systems all at once. What you should do first is unify the storage location into a shared drive, and determine file naming rules and distribute them to everyone. These two steps establish the foundation for authenticity and visibility. It is completely sufficient to verify the scope of relaxation measures and add only the missing components later.
If you are concerned about invoice and receipt PDFs being scattered throughout the company, lack confidence that your state can withstand a tax audit, or want to organize your workflow reasonably using Google Workspace, please feel free to reach out through GleamHub's free IT and Google Workspace consultation. We will assist you within a realistic scope, from reviewing your current situation to designing shared drives, establishing folder and naming rules, and integrating them into monthly workflows.
Sources
- Special Site for Electronic Books and Records Preservation System - National Tax Agency
- What Should We Do? Electronic Bookkeeping Act - Small and Medium Enterprise Agency Mirasapo Plus
- Comprehensive Guide to Requirements, Target Documents, and Methods for Electronic Transaction Data Storage Under the Electronic Bookkeeping Act - OPTiM
