Understanding the E-Bilanz: what accounting must supply first

The annual financial statements are due, your tax advisor wants to submit the E-Bilanz, and then the queries start: Which account does this entry belong to? Why does a collective account show a balance that nobody can explain? Every one of these queries costs time, and entries often have to be reclassified after the fact, even though the closing should already be finished. Most of these errors do not arise during the closing, but months earlier in the account assignment.

What the E-Bilanz Requires

The E-Bilanz is the electronic transmission of the balance sheet and the income statement to the tax authorities. It is not submitted as a PDF, but as a structured data set in XBRL format (an XML standard for financial reports). For this purpose, the tax authorities specify a taxonomy: a fixed schema of line items, known as taxonomy positions. Every amount in the financial statements must be assignable to one of these positions.

This has a consequence for your accounting: It is not enough for the balances to be correct. Each account must be clearly assigned to one position in the taxonomy, and in such a way that the breakdown is accurate in substance.

Which companies are required to submit, which taxonomy version applies and which deadlines you need to observe are questions to clarify with your tax advisor. This information changes over time and does not belong in a fixed checklist.

Situation: The Account Fits No Position

You work with a chart of accounts that has grown over the years. Someone once created an account called "Sundry Miscellaneous," and various expenses have been posted to it ever since. The E-Bilanz, however, has no "Miscellaneous" position. Your tax advisor has to split the balance, and you have to provide supporting documents for every entry.

Check each account with this question: Can the balance be assigned completely to a single taxonomy position?

• If yes, the assignment is fine.
• If no, because the account holds a mix of items, split the account into several accounts before new entries are posted.
• If the account is a legacy account with no clear content, block it for postings and reassign the existing balance.

Standard charts of accounts such as SKR03 and SKR04 (the charts of accounts used in the DATEV environment; DATEV is the cooperative whose software many tax advisors use) are already aligned with the taxonomy. The closer your chart of accounts stays to the standard, the less assignment work you have. Custom accounts are permitted, but they need a documented assignment.

Situation: Changing the Chart of Accounts or the System

A company introduces a new ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system and carries over the chart of accounts from the old system. Accounts from an in-house development or from spreadsheet-based bookkeeping are taken over one to one. In the first closing in the new system, the assignment is then missing.

Before the data migration, map the old chart of accounts to the standard chart, for example SKR04. A simple mapping table is enough: old account, new account, rationale. When the financial accounting is set up in Simplify-ERP, this mapping is part of the process, as are the opening balance sheet and the reconciliation before the first month-end closing. The reason applies in any software: Only when the opening balance sheet is correct can a closing be prepared meaningfully.

Decision rule: If two legacy accounts represent the same thing in substance, merge them into one account. If a legacy account contains a mix of items, separate it by content.

Situation: Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable and Collective Accounts

Receivables and liabilities run through personal accounts (customer and supplier accounts). On the balance sheet, they appear as a total under the respective positions. Problems arise when a customer is also a supplier, when accounts payable show debit balances, or when prepayments sit in the wrong account.

Check the following before the closing:

1. Are there accounts payable with a debit balance or accounts receivable with a credit balance? On the balance sheet, these amounts often belong on the opposite side.
2. Are prepayments from customers and to suppliers recorded in separate accounts?
3. Does the total of the personal accounts match the collective account?
4. Are the open items reconciled, for example with bank statements and balance confirmations?

Your tax advisor will clarify whether and how you need to present reclassifications.

Situation: Additional Data That No Account Provides

Not everything in the E-Bilanz comes from account balances. Depending on the company, this includes, for example, company information, shareholder data, the fixed asset schedule or information on taxes. Tax advisors regularly request such data only during the closing, when time is short.

Set up a fixed delivery list for this, and work through it before year-end:

• Company master data: legal form, address, tax number
• Fixed asset accounting with additions, disposals and depreciation per asset
• Open item lists as of the reporting date
• Balance confirmations and bank balances
• Provisions with justification and calculation
• Notes on special transactions during the year

Have your tax advisor confirm which further information is required for your legal form.

Situation: The Data Goes to the Tax Advisor

Whether you hand over data via DATEV export, file or an access portal, what matters is that the handover is repeatable and traceable. An export that is reassembled manually after every correction creates discrepancies between your accounting and your tax advisor's. Agree on which system is the leading one, and record the point from which entries in the prior year may no longer be changed. If your accounting is maintained in compliance with GoBD (the principles for the proper keeping of books in electronic form), changes remain traceable. This also protects you when the tax audit raises queries.

Your Next Step

Take the trial balance of your last closing today and mark every account whose balance you cannot assign to a single balance sheet or income statement position in one sentence. These accounts are your problem cases. Clarify with your tax advisor how they have been assigned so far, and set a documented decision for each: keep, split or block.