How to Keep Records of Your Share Investments in Nigeria: Contract Notes, CSCS Statements, Dividend Advices and Registrar Letters

Keeping records of your share investments in Nigeria means holding on to, and filing in one place, the contract note for every purchase and sale, your CSCS statements, each dividend advice or bank credit, and every letter or form exchanged with a company's registrar, so that you can always prove what you own, what you paid for it and what you have received from it. The shares themselves are held electronically at CSCS under your Clearing House Number, but the paper and email trail around them is yours to keep, and no single institution holds all of it for you.

The Documents That Make Up a Complete Record

• Account details: your CHN and CSCS account number, your stockbroker's name and your client account number with them, and the shareholder or registrar account number each registrar has given you. These are the keys to everything else.
• Contract notes: one for every executed buy or sell, issued by your SEC-registered stockbroker. Each records the date, ticker, quantity, price, charges, net amount and settlement date. It is the only document that records what you paid for a parcel of shares.
• CSCS statements: the periodic or on-demand statement of every holding under your CHN. It is the proof of what you own at a date, and the document to reconcile against your contract notes.
• X-Alert messages: the SMS or email CSCS sends when shares move in or out of your account. They are a running log of settlements.
• Dividend advices and bank credits: the registrar's advice showing the gross dividend, the withholding tax deducted and the net amount paid, together with the matching entry on your bank statement.
• E-dividend mandate and other registrar forms: your completed mandate, any change-of-address or change-of-bank forms, and the acknowledgements.
• Corporate action correspondence: bonus allotment letters, rights issue application forms and allotment letters, scrip election forms, takeover offer documents and any acceptance you sent.
• Old share certificates, if you have any: even where the holding has been dematerialised into CSCS, keep the certificate and the dematerialisation acknowledgement together.

Why You Keep Them

• Proof of ownership: a CSCS statement under your CHN is the document that shows the shares are yours. If a broker closes, a platform shuts down or a registrar's records are incomplete, it is what you produce.
• Cost history: only the contract note records the price and charges of each purchase. Your CSCS statement and the registrar know what you hold, not what it cost.
• Dividends and corporate actions: dividend advices show what was paid and what tax was withheld, and let you spot a dividend that never arrived. Allotment letters show bonus and rights shares that should appear on your CSCS statement.
• Tax records: rules on the taxation of dividends and of gains on share disposals in Nigeria depend on your circumstances and can change. Whatever the rule at the time, the purchase price, sale price, dates and tax already withheld are the figures any calculation starts from. Keep the documents that show them and ask a tax adviser how the rules apply to you.
• Disputes: a written record of the quantity, price and charges you agreed is your evidence if you disagree with a broker or a registrar.
• Tracing and inheritance: people who inherit or rediscover shares years later find the search far quicker when a CHN, a broker name and a registrar account number survive.

How to Organise Them

The method matters less than consistency. One folder per company, with a separate folder for CSCS statements and broker correspondence, or one folder per year: either works if you keep to it.

• Keep digital copies of everything. Scan or photograph paper documents and save emailed ones as PDFs, with a file name that includes the date, the company and the document type.
• Store copies in at least two places, such as a cloud folder and a local drive, so that a lost phone or laptop does not take the records with it.
• Keep a simple register in a spreadsheet: date, company and ticker, buy or sell, quantity, price, charges, net amount, broker reference and the CHN it settled to. Add a row for each dividend received and each bonus or rights allotment.
• Download a CSCS statement at least once a year and after any unusual activity, and file it with the date in the name.
• When you change broker, address or bank, keep the request and the acknowledgement together, and check that the next CSCS statement or dividend advice reflects the change.

How Long Records Are Typically Kept

Documents that prove ownership, such as CSCS statements, allotment letters and any certificates, are kept for as long as you hold the shares and are not discarded afterwards, because a question about a holding can arise years later. Documents that record cost and income, such as contract notes and dividend advices, are kept for as long as you hold the shares and for a further period after a sale. The period commonly quoted for tax records in Nigeria is six years from the end of the year concerned, but the rule, and the circumstances in which it is extended, vary and change; check with a tax adviser what applies to you. The documents are small, so many investors simply keep everything indefinitely.

Records for the People Who Come After You

Shares are among the assets most often lost between generations in Nigeria, usually because nobody else knew they existed or where the papers were. Tell at least one trusted person that you hold shares and where the records are, and keep the list of your CHN, broker and registrar account numbers with your other important documents. A documented holding can be transferred to your heirs through the registrar after probate; an undocumented one can take years to find.

Keeping Share Records in Nigeria: FAQs

Does my broker or CSCS keep these records for me?

Each keeps its own part. CSCS holds your current positions and settlement history; your broker holds its trade records; each registrar holds its own register and dividend records. None of them holds the complete picture across every holding and every year, and brokers and platforms can close. Your own file is the only complete one.

What if I never received a contract note for an old purchase?

Ask the broker that executed it for a copy or a statement of the trade. If the broker no longer exists, your CSCS statement will still show the holding, and the registrar will show the date you came onto the register, but the price you paid may have to be established from bank records.

How do I check my records against what I actually hold?

Take your latest CSCS statement and, for each company, add up the quantities on your contract notes and allotment letters, less any sales. The totals should match. If a company on your statement is missing from your records, or the reverse, raise it with your broker or the registrar.