Keep construction records for as long as the liability runs, without old licences.

Why do platform subscriptions fall short of construction retention periods?

• Liability runs in years, platform access in weeks. A Procore Project Archive download lasts 30 days, Autodesk cloud documents stay accessible for about 30 days after a subscription ends, and Oracle closes an Aconex project in not less than 30 days.
• Limitation periods, long-stops and statutes of repose decide how long a claim can be brought. They run for years after completion, differ between countries and states, and some start only when a defect is found.
• Contracts, deeds and warranties can set their own terms, so the right period depends on what was signed as well as where the work was done.
• Periods change through legislation and court decisions, so a retention rule set once can fall out of date.
• Company financial records have their own minimum retention rules, so progress claims, invoices and payment records need keeping whether or not a claim arrives.

How long do you need to keep construction project records?

For years after completion, for as long as a claim about the work could still be brought. Limitation periods, the time someone has to bring a claim, are not record-keeping rules, but they set how long you may need to prove what happened, and they vary by jurisdiction, contract and type of claim.

Our records-retention guide covers which records matter and what to ask your lawyer. This is general information, not legal advice. Ask a lawyer before setting a retention period.

• Which jurisdictions your projects sit in, and which periods apply in each
• Whether contracts, deeds or warranties extend those periods
• When each period starts, such as completion or the discovery of a defect
• Whether company financial records have a separate minimum

Where should you store construction records you need for years?

Somewhere that does not depend on a live platform subscription, in formats you can open without the original software, with revision history intact and a named owner. A record that cannot be found or opened is little help in a dispute.

Cloud storage you control can enforce retention for you. Amazon S3 Object Lock and Azure Blob immutable storage both keep data in a write once, read many state for a set retention period, so it cannot be changed or deleted until the period ends. SIINC works with both turned on.

How SIINC holds construction records for the retention period

Records outside the platform, in your own account

SIINC writes Procore, Autodesk and Aconex backups into an Amazon S3 bucket or Azure Blob container in your own account and region. Your retention and access policies apply as normal, and storage is billed by AWS or Azure at your own rates.

Readable years later, with or without SIINC

Backups are the original files with their revisions plus JSON metadata, in a documented folder structure you can read with standard AWS or Azure tools. You keep the copy if you stop using SIINC.

Found by someone who was not on the project

The Procore Workbench, Autodesk Portal and Aconex Portal read straight from your bucket, so a records manager or lawyer can search a closed project and download what they need without a platform licence.

Deleted records kept for the plan term

Sync runs copy only what changed and keep anything deleted in the platform for the term of your plan, so a record removed in Procore, Autodesk or Aconex is still in your copy.

Evidence for auditors, insurers and tenders

Execution history records every run, a checksum is recorded for every file, and the run history is tamper-evident. On Professional and Enterprise, scheduled reports in PDF, Excel, CSV or HTML and an exportable client audit log of every user and admin action, kept for 12 months, show what was backed up and who accessed it.