What documents must be attached to the advance report?

Why does accounting require supporting documents?

Clause 6.3 of the instruction of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation No. 3210-U dated March 11, 2014 states that accountable persons are required to submit advance reports along with supporting documentation, but the instructions of the Central Bank do not say which check is needed for reporting to the accounting department.
Essentially, this is any financial form that confirms expenses and contains mandatory primary accounting details. Otherwise, the form cannot be accepted for accounting. The widespread transition to online cash registers has made significant changes in the procedure for conducting settlements with accountable persons. Almost all sellers of goods, works or services are required to make purchases through an online cash register. The buyer is issued a fiscal cash receipt (hereinafter referred to as FKCH) or a new type BSO. Law No. 54-FZ clearly defined which check can be accepted for an advance report, and accepting forms that do not comply with the new regulations for the use of online cash registers carries tax risks for the company.

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Basic definitions and order of interaction between the parties

An advance report is a document that confirms and explains the expenditure of the Organization's funds issued to an employee, in this case, an accountable person.

The accountable person is the employee of the Organization who is entrusted with the task and given the money for it.

The list of people who can act as an accountable person, the amount of the advance amount and the deadline for submitting the report are determined by the head of the Organization.

Accountable amounts must be spent only for the intended purpose specified when issuing financial resources, and cannot be transferred by one accountable person to another.

Before the expiration of the deadline, the employee must report for the spent funds and bring properly executed primary documents to the accounting department, and return those not spent to the cash register or to the current account; the overexpenditure is paid by the Organization.

Three days are given for the preparation of reporting documents from the date of expiration of the period for which the money was issued. If during this time the primary documents never made it into the accounting department and the funds never arrived back at the cash desk or to the Organization’s current account, then the employee is recognized as indebted. It is important not to be confused; this amount does not apply to taxable income.

The appropriate actions of the accountant in this case:

1. Write a letter to the employee politely reminding him of his debt.

2. Draw up a reconciliation report with the employee.

3. Most likely, what will follow:

3.1 report from the employee;

3.2 an application from an employee with a request to withhold arrears from wages;

3.3 return of the debt amount from other sources of income.

4. If nothing happened from point 3, then the Organization has the right to sue the employee.

Requirements for documents confirming expenses

In paragraph 6.1 of Art. 4.7 of Federal Law No. 54-FZ regulates uniform requirements for checks for the 2021 advance report. The standard establishes more than 20 details, these include:

• name of the organization and TIN;
• date, time and place (address) of settlement;
• position and full name of the cashier (seller) who knocked out the FKCH;
• name of the document and calculation indicator;
• registration number of the cash register and serial number of the fiscal drive;
• address of the site where the FCC is checked;
• shift number and serial number of the FCC for the shift;
• name of goods (works, services), quantity, price per unit, cost including discounts;
• calculation form;
• VAT rate and amount;
• taxation system;
• product code.

Legislators have provided for some features characteristic of each type of fiscal documentation.

Cash receipt

Back in 2021, with the introduction of Federal Law No. 129-FZ of 06/06/2019, new rules began to apply regarding which checks are accepted for advance reports in 2021, so make sure that the fiscal form contains additional details:

• buyer's name;
• Buyer's TIN;
• country of origin of the goods;
• Number of customs declaration;
• excise tax amount.

What details are permissible not to indicate in the paper FKCh are determined by the Federal Tax Service (clause 1.1 of Article 4.7 of Law No. 54-FZ). For example, it may not contain the shift number and the FCC number for the shift.

Sales receipt

Accountable persons reporting to the accounting department usually attach cash and sales receipts for the advance report, although if there is a fiscal (cash) receipt, the sales receipt is not required. Is it permissible to accept an advance report if the employee has only provided a commodity report?

Yes, the organization has the right to take into account expenses on the advance report, to which only the TC is attached (letter of the Ministry of Finance No. 03-01-15/52653 dated 08/16/2017). The employer is not responsible for the seller's failure to comply with cash laws.

In addition, the accountable person or his manager is not authorized to check whether the seller is obliged to use online cash register systems. Therefore, recognize expenses even if the employee submitted a sales receipt without a cash receipt for the advance report in 2021, but note that such documents may entail tax risks in terms of recognizing expenses for tax purposes.

Check received electronically

If the accountant was given an electronic FCC, then it is also a fiscal document confirming expenses. Is a check sufficient for an advance statement? Yes, that's enough, but the document needs to be printed.

To do this, download the online receipt using the link from the message sent by the seller by email or SMS. Then print the electronic document and attach it to the AO. The digital form must contain all the details provided for by Federal Tax Service Order No. ММВ-7-20/ [email protected] dated 03/21/2017 (as amended on 08/29/2019). Otherwise, the document is not evidence of reported expenses.

Strict reporting forms

Instead of FKCH, the seller has the right to issue specialized BSO. A payment receipt without a cash receipt for an advance report is accepted on a general basis. The requirements for the details of the strict reporting form are the same; they are enshrined in clause 6.1 of Art. 4.7 Federal Law No. 54-FZ.

IMPORTANT!

Paper BSO should not fade within six months (Clause 8, Article 4.7 of Law No. 54-FZ).

Issuance of monetary documents

A monetary document can be, for example, a plane ticket that an organization purchased for an employee who is going on a business trip.

After purchase, this ticket is accounted for as the debit of account 50.03:

When issuing this ticket to an employee for reporting (before a business trip), the accounting department draws up the document “Issue of monetary documents”:

And on the “Cash Documents” tab this very ticket is indicated:

The posting turned out like this (the ticket was written off from account 50.03):

I will specifically mention:

• We have the right to issue reports only to employees of the organization - persons with whom we have concluded an employment or civil law contract.
• The list of such persons is approved by a separate order of the head.
• The same order stipulates the maximum period within which the employee must report to the accounting department; if an employee goes on a business trip, this period is automatically extended until his return.

What documents cannot confirm expenses?

Representatives of the Ministry of Finance and the Federal Tax Service have repeatedly pointed out to accountants which checks cannot be accepted for advance reports:

• the document has faded, the details are unreadable;
• The FCC does not contain any mandatory details;
• the contents of the payment transaction do not correspond to the sub-report, for example, payment for a hotel room does not coincide with the dates of the business trip;
• the document is damaged, some of the required details are lost.

IMPORTANT!

If supporting documents for the advance report are drawn up in violation of the legislation of the Russian Federation, then expenses on them are not taken into account for tax purposes, since they do not have proper documentary evidence (letters of the Ministry of Finance No. 03-03-06/2/94579 dated 12/05/2019, No. 03- 03-06/1/3300 dated 01/22/2020, No. 03-03-06/3/4915, No. 03-03-06/1/4913 dated 01/28/2020).

Rules for writing a report

Today there is no unified report template that is strictly required to be filled out, however, most accountants, in the old fashioned way, prefer to use a previously generally applicable form. This is understandable: it includes all the necessary information, including -

• information about the organization that issued the money,
• the employee who received them,
• exact amount of funds
• the purposes for which they were intended.
• The expenses incurred are also reflected here, along with all supporting documents. In addition, the report contains the signatures of the accounting employees who issued the money and accepted the balance, as well as the employee for whom the accountable funds were registered.

It is not necessary to put a stamp on a document, since it is part of the company’s internal document flow; moreover, since 2016, legal entities, as previously and individual entrepreneurs, have the full legal right not to use seals and stamps to endorse papers.

A document is created in a single original copy, and there is no need to delay filling it out - according to the law, it must be issued a maximum of three days after the money is spent.

Since the expense report relates to the primary accounting documentation, you should be very careful when filling it out and try to avoid mistakes. In cases where this could not be avoided, it is better to fill out a new form.

Electronic boarding pass

Include payment for travel for business travelers in tax expenses based on a printed electronic ticket or boarding pass (letter of the Ministry of Finance No. 03-03-06/1/4908 dated January 28, 2020).

If an electronic ticket is lost, the flight costs will be confirmed by a certificate from the airline that the business traveler flew on the flight indicated on the ticket. If there is no certificate, the Ministry of Finance allows you to justify the expenses with a ticket and documents indirectly confirming the flight (letter of the Ministry of Finance No. 03-03-05/12957 dated February 28, 2019) - a mark in the passport, etc.

How to correct errors in the expense report?

If you find an error in the expense report, corrections can be made according to the general rules for corrections in primary documents:

• If some incorrect entry was made (For example: an employee was given 5,000 rubles for office supplies. The actual cost was 4,278.13 rubles. When filling out the expense report, the employee made a mistake and indicated the amount of expense as 4,287.13.) In this case, it is necessary cross out 4,278.13 in one line, write down the correct amount 4,287.13 with the note “believe the corrected”, and the corrected entry must be readable;
• Nearby do about;
• The responsible employee must certify the correction with his signature.

What to pay attention to from July 1, 2021

The Law on Online Cash Registers has also made adjustments to the procedure for confirming the legality of using accountable funds. Here you need to pay attention to two main innovations that relate to the use of strict reporting forms and the content of cash receipts .

Return of unused funds to the company's cash desk

The return of the DS is carried out through the “Cash receipt order/Return from an accountable person”, or by transfer to the organization’s current account.

The peculiarities of the operation of returning unspent DS by the accountant to the organization’s current account (by bank transfer) include the fact that this operation is not regulated by current legislation, therefore it is advisable to exclude it from the fact of economic activity. As a last resort, you can try to determine the procedure for such payments in local acts, for example, issue an order on the procedure for the issuance and return of unspent funds by accountable persons by bank transfer.