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Your records whether in paper or electronic format, have to:

be reliable and complete;
provide you with the correct information you need to assist in fulfilling your tax obligations and to calculate your entitlements;
be supported by source documents to verify the information contained in the records; and
include other documents, such as appointment books, logbooks, income tax and goods and services tax/harmonized sales tax (GST/HST) returns, scientific research and experimental development (SR&ED) vouchers and records, and certain accountants' working papers, that assist in determining your obligations and entitlements.

Note
Persons carrying on more than one business must keep separate records for each business.

We consider you to have electronic records if you create, process, maintain, and store your information in an electronic format.

You are required to retain your electronic records in an electronically readable format, even if you have paper printouts of the electronic records.

If any of your source documents are initially created, transmitted, or received electronically, they must be retained in an electronic format.

If you record any business transactions or business information on a computerized system:

you must make sure that your computerized system is capable of providing the correct information you need to calculate your tax obligations and entitlements;
your computerized records must be retained and easily converted into an electronically readable format and be made available upon request;
computerized records (electronic data files) must be kept even when a hardcopy is available;
it is your responsibility to arrange for the records to be made available upon request if your systems are stored on a Web server outside of Canada;
it is still your responsibility to ensure that the electronic records are complete, are retained, are readable, and that they will be made available upon request if you authorize a third party to run your e-commerce business;
you must ensure that your records can be decrypted and produced in an accessible and electronically readable format if they are encrypted; and
you must maintain the capability to retrieve the data already stored on the former system and provide the data in a readable format upon request, if you change your computerized record keeping system - either hardware or software.