What are primary documents? Primary accounting documentation is...

Documentation, the meaning of primary documents

Details of primary documents, unification and standardization of documents

Types of accounting documents

The procedure for registration, reception, verification, processing and storage of documents

Organization of document flow

1. Documentation, the meaning of primary documents

For a complete and continuous reflection of accounting objects, it is necessary first of all to record each business transaction. To do this, the first element of the accounting method is documentation. Documentation- a method of primary reflection of accounting objects, allowing for continuous and continuous monitoring of them.

According to the Regulations on accounting and financial reporting in the Russian Federation (approved by order of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation No. 34-n dated July 29, 1998), “all business transactions must be documented with supporting documents. These documents serve as primary accounting documents on the basis of which accounting is carried out.”

Document translated from the Latin documentum means evidence, evidence.

Primary accounting document – a written certificate that confirms the fact of a business transaction or the right to carry it out.

Primary accounting – This is a single, repeated over time, organized process of collecting, measuring, recording, accumulating and storing information about economic activities.

The importance of primary accounting documents in the financial and economic activities of an enterprise:

Documents serve as the basis and confirmation of the correctness of accounting data.

They are used for operational guidance and management.

On the basis of documents, monitoring of accounting objects is carried out.

Documents have legal significance. They are used as evidence in disputes in court.

Documents have control value.

1. Details of primary documents, unification and standardization of documents

Props translated from Latin requisitum means required, necessary.

Requisites– indicators characterizing the business transaction reflected in the document.

Details are mandatory and optional.

According to paragraph 2 of Article 9 of the Federal Law “On Accounting” No. 402-FZ dated December 6, 2011. The mandatory details of the primary accounting document are:

1) name of the document;

2) date of preparation of the document;

3) name of the organization;

5) the amount of natural and (or) monetary measurement of a fact of economic life, indicating the units of measurement;

6) names of positions of persons responsible for the accomplishment of a fact of economic life;

7) personal signatures of the indicated persons indicating last names and initials.

Additional details are not legally approved. They are entered by the enterprise itself at will in all documents, except for documents on the primary accounting of funds. Additional details may include: address and telephone number of the organization, surname of the parties involved in the transaction, etc.

Before the entry into force of the new Federal Law “On Accounting” No. 402-FZ dated December 6, 2011. (this law came into effect on January 1, 2013), much attention was paid to the unification and standardization of primary accounting documents. Documents were accepted for accounting if they were drawn up in accordance with the form contained in the albums of unified forms of primary accounting documentation. These albums were developed by the Russian State Statistics Committee (now Rosstat) in agreement with the Russian Ministry of Finance. About 250 unified forms of documents were approved.

Unified documents are standard documents intended for registration of homogeneous transactions in organizations with different forms of ownership and industry affiliation.

In addition, line ministries also developed unified documents for enterprises in their industries. For example, the Russian Ministry of Agriculture developed unified documents for recording agricultural products, animals, land, etc.

Document standardization is the establishment of identical standard sizes for standard documents. This was done to reduce paper consumption and simplify document processing and storage.

With the entry into force of the Federal Law “On Accounting” No. 402-FZ dated December 6, 2011. Enterprises are relieved of the obligation to use unified documents developed by Goskomstat and line ministries. According to paragraph 4 of Article 9 of this law, the forms of primary documents are approved by the head of the enterprise upon the recommendation of the chief accountant (or the person entrusted with accounting). When developing document forms, an accountant must include all the required details and make them compact. Chief accountants, as a rule, submit unified forms of documents for approval.

Primary accounting documents or primary records, as accountants call them, are the basis of accounting, both accounting and tax. Without proper registration, maintenance and primary documents, it is impossible to conduct legal business activities.

The Law “On Accounting” dated December 6, 2011 No. 402-FZ indicates that “every fact of economic life is subject to registration as a primary accounting document.”

To make sure you have all the necessary documents, you should regularly check your accounting, and for those who do not have time for this, we recommend a free accounting audit service.

The primary document proves in writing the fact of a business transaction, confirms the commission of business expenses when calculating the tax base, and establishes the responsibility of performers for the performance of business transactions. Primary documents are requested by tax inspectors when checking declarations and reports, and they are necessary when passing audits.

Considering that not only accountants, but also managers, individual entrepreneurs, sales managers and other employees fill out and prepare primary documents, we invite you to familiarize yourself with the requirements for these documents.

Who develops the forms of primary documents?

Primary accounting documents are unified(the form of which was developed by Rosstat (formerly Goskomstat of the Russian Federation) or the Central Bank) and independently developed by taxpayers.

Article 9 of Law No. 402-FZ contains the following list of mandatory details of primary documents (unified or independently developed):

• Title of the document;
• date of document preparation;
• name of the economic entity that compiled the document;
• content of the fact of economic life;
• the value of the natural and (or) monetary measurement of a fact of economic life, indicating the units of measurement;
• the name of the position of the person who completed the transaction, operation and the person responsible for its execution;
• signatures of these persons.

As for the seal, although it is not listed among the required details, if there is a field “M.P.” (space for printing) its imprint is required.

If the taxpayer is satisfied with the unified forms from Goskomstat (fortunately, the list of them is huge), then it is not necessary to develop your own forms. There is also the concept of “modernized primary”, i.e. unified primary documents to which the taxpayer has made his own additions.

Note, You cannot independently develop and approve forms of the following primary documents:

• cash documents;
• payment order and other bank settlement documents;
• unified forms for payments using a cash register;
• waybill;
• payroll and payroll.

Such primary documents can only be unified.

Where can I find samples of unified primary documents?

The development and approval of forms for primary documents is the responsibility of Goskomstat (now Rosstat). Today, unified forms developed in the 90s of the last century continue to be used. Only settlement (payment) documents developed by the Bank of Russia have a relatively new edition - from 2012.

Such documents are called differently: acts, journals, invoices, statements, orders, books, instructions, calculations, powers of attorney, orders, etc. Using this table, you will find in which Resolution of the State Statistics Committee the unified forms of primary documents you need are published.

On our website you can download forms of unified primary documents and by .

A strict reporting form (SRF) is also a primary document, but there are special requirements for it. The list of mandatory BSO details is wider than the list of ordinary primary documents, in particular, the TIN and the presence of a seal are required.

In the article “” you can find out in which cases it is necessary to use the unified form of this document, and when you can develop it yourself.

Errors in primary documents

First of all, the source documents must contain correctly specified mandatory details. According to the Ministry of Finance, a taxpayer can take into account expenses on the primary tax return if it contains only minor errors.

Such errors should not interfere with the accurate identification of the seller and buyer, the name of the goods and their value, and other circumstances of the documented fact of economic life (from the letter of the Ministry of Finance dated February 4, 2015 No. 03-03-10/4547).

Unfortunately, the typical streamlined formulation of officials’ explanations often does not make it possible to clearly understand which inaccuracies or errors in the primary documents will be considered insignificant.

For example, is it a minor error if a taxpayer's name is in lowercase letters instead of uppercase letters? In another letter - dated 05/02/2012 No. 03-07-11/130, the Ministry of Finance indicated that errors such as replacing capital letters with lowercase ones and vice versa; reversing letters; incorrect indication of the organizational and legal form is not an obstacle to identifying the taxpayer (if the TIN and other details are correctly indicated).

But the following errors can be considered significant for primary documents:

• arithmetic errors (the price/quantity of goods or the amount of tax is incorrectly indicated);
• different names of the same product (for example, in the specification for the supply contract the candies are called “Waffle candies in chocolate”, and in the invoice - “Bear in the North”);
• inaccurate job titles of those who sign the primary documents (for example, the power of attorney states “Deputy General Director”, and the acceptance certificate states “Deputy Director”);
• the amounts in figures do not coincide with the same amounts indicated in words (instead of 155,000 rubles (one hundred and fifty-five thousand rubles), 155,000 rubles (fifty-five thousand rubles) are written).

The tax office may not accept expenses for such primary documents; the counterparty may also have problems when deducting VAT.

You can correct primary documents only in a corrective way(incorrect text is crossed out with one thin line, and the correct text is written on top). Corrections are accompanied by the inscription “Corrected”, the date and signatures of the responsible persons. Corrections of incoming and outgoing orders, bank documents and BSO are unacceptable. They need to be compiled anew.

Pay attention to the fact that the primary documents are signed during the validity period of the power of attorney issued for their signing, otherwise the inspectors will consider that the documents were signed by an unauthorized employee. The same thing needs to be monitored regarding the signatures on your primary document of representatives of counterparties: the powers of attorney issued to them must be current.

When preparing primary documents, you need to be careful not only about filling them out, but also about the correspondence of their dates and other details with other documents, for example, contracts and invoices. Thus, the deduction of VAT on an invoice drawn up earlier than the delivery note will be controversial.

Questions from the tax authorities will be raised by invoices or acts signed earlier than the agreement, the execution of which is confirmed by primary documents. There is a way out of this situation, provided for in paragraph 2 of Art. 425 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation: indicate in the text of the agreement the following clause: “The terms of this agreement also apply to the relations of the parties that arose before its conclusion.”

Or, for example, the act states that the work was completed in the period from March 10 to March 30, while in the contract the period of work is set as from April 10 to April 30. In this case, you can draw up an additional agreement to the contract, which indicates the actual deadline for completing the work or indicates in the act itself that the work was completed ahead of schedule.

Contractors need to be careful when the customer signs work completion certificates. If subcontractors were involved under the contract, the contractor must sign agreements with them before the work is handed over to the customer. If these dates do not correspond, tax authorities may consider the costs of the subcontractor unjustified and not recognize them when calculating the tax base.

Document flow of primary documents

The document flow of primary documents includes the following stages:

• preparation of the primary document;
• transfer of the document to the accounting department, where it is checked and entered into the registers;
• current storage and subsequent transfer of the document to the archive.

It’s not an idle question: when should primary documents be drawn up? The answer to this is in Article 9 of Law No. 402-FZ “The primary accounting document must be drawn up when committing a fact of economic life, and if this is not possible, immediately after its completion.”

It is unacceptable to draw up primary documents several days after a business transaction. All employees who have the right to draw up primary registration must comply with a document flow schedule, in which you can set, for example, the following deadlines for submitting documents to the accounting department:

• incoming and outgoing cash orders - on the day of preparation;
• documents related to sales registration - no later than the next working day;
• advance reports - no later than three working days after the funds are spent;
• certificates of incapacity for work - no later than the next working day after returning to work, etc.

As for documents signed by counterparties, the obligation to transfer them in a timely manner can be provided for in the text of the contract, for example, as follows: “The Buyer undertakes to transfer to the Supplier the originals of signed delivery notes, acts and invoices no later than two business days from the date of their signing.”

When submitting a signed primary document, the accounting department checks the form of the document; availability of required details; the legality of the business transaction; arithmetic calculations. Data from verified primary documents are entered into accounting registers.

Current storage of primary documents is usually carried out in the accounting department, and at the end of the year, documents are grouped by date, collected in bundles and transferred to the archive. Primary documents must be stored for at least five years.

Documents are the starting point of accounting.

Accounting documentation is part of the organization’s management documentation system in accordance with the All-Russian Classifier of Management Documentation (OKUD), approved by Decree of the State Standard of Russia of December 30, 1993 No. 299.

Accounting documents can be divided into three levels: primary accounting documentation, accounting registers and reporting accounting documentation.

Let's focus on the primary accounting documentation. These are documents that record the facts of a business transaction. The primary accounting document must be drawn up at the time of the transaction, and if this is not possible, immediately after its completion.

Sample document forms are approved by government agencies. Such forms of documents are called standard or unified.

Accounting documents are classified according to several criteria:

By purpose:

Administrative.

Exculpatory (executive). For example: incoming and outgoing cash orders, goods and transport invoices, invoices, acts, invoices, etc. An invoice is an appendix to a bill of lading. Compiled in the interests of the tax office

Accounting documents. For example: payslips, calculation of vacation pay, calculation of temporary disability benefits, calculation of depreciation and others.

Combined documents – contain both elements. For example, cash receipts.

By place of compilation:

internal.

For example: invoice for internal movement, PKO, RKO, acts.

external. For example: TTN, invoice

According to the degree of generalization of business operations;

primary. For example: PKO, RKO, TTN, acts, invoices.

summary. For example: Cash report, commodity report, advance report, material report.

By order of use;

one-time For example: PKO, RKO, acts.

cumulative.

For example: daily pick-up sheet, limit pick-up card.

2.2. Details of accounting documents

Documents consist of individual indicators, which are called details (from the Latin word “required, necessary”).

The set of details of a document determines its form.

In order for a document to serve its purpose, it must be drawn up in accordance with the form adopted for this category of documents.

But in any case, the document must contain the following mandatory details:

Name of the document (form)

Form code

Date of preparation

Name of the organization that compiled the document

Business transaction meters

Last names and positions of responsible persons, their personal signatures.

If the document is an external document, then in addition to personal signatures, the organization's round seal must be affixed to the document.

An electronic document contains the same information as a paper document. The content of an electronic document can be viewed on a computer screen. An electronic document can be printed in paper form. An electronic document can be reproduced in a huge number of completely identical copies, and can be instantly sent to another computer anywhere in the world using email.

Electronic documents are already widely used in the communication of enterprises with banks and tax authorities.

All documents in the accounting department are carefully checked from three sides: legal, from the point of view of registration, and arithmetic.

Verified documents are recorded in the document registration log.

Corrections to cash and bank documents are not permitted. Corrections can be made to other primary accounting documents only with the agreement of the participants in business transactions, which must be confirmed by the signatures of the same persons who signed the documents, indicating the date of the corrections.

Currently, special attention is paid to the unification and standardization of documents. Unification of documents is the development of a unified form of Russian documents for registration of homogeneous business transactions in various organizations. In Russia, the forms of cash documents, bank documents, etc. have been unified.

They are mandatory for all areas of activity. Along with unification, standardization of documents is important. Standardization is the establishment of identical standard sizes of standard document forms. When maintaining accounting records, it is important to establish a rational document flow, i.e. an optimal system for generating accounting documents, accepting them for accounting, moving them around the enterprise, their current storage and transfer to the archive. This ensures a high degree of accounting reliability with minimal investment of time and money.

Primary documentation occupies a fairly important place among all the documentation maintained by the accounting department. It is constantly checked by the tax service and must be drawn up in accordance with the necessary norms and laws in force in the Russian Federation. We will discuss in our article what relates to primary documentation, how to formalize and draw it up correctly, so as not to have problems with the tax inspectorate later.

Primary documentation in accounting - what is it?

Primary documents are the basis upon which accounting entries can be made and entered into the general register. This is an important part of the management documentation of an enterprise or organization.

In all enterprises that the state forced to keep accounting records, business transactions must be formalized in accordance with the primary documentation. A business transaction is understood as any activity of an enterprise that entails the movement of funds or the structure of its assets.

According to the accounting law, the preparation of primary documentation must occur simultaneously with business actions, that is, it must be immediately documented. But if this is not possible, you can make documentation immediately after the end of the action.

Primary documentation can be prepared both on paper and electronically. But in the second option, all papers must be certified with an electronic signature, otherwise they simply will not have legal force. But, if the contract clearly states the presence of a paper version of the document, then it must be available.

Primary documents will be preserved for 4 years. During this period, the tax office has the right to request them at any time to check you and your counterparty. You should be especially careful about the documents in which you buy anything. Remember, it is thanks to them that you will be able to go to court if the need arises.

Separation of documents by business stages

All transactions carried out by an enterprise or organization can be divided into 3 stages:

1. Discussion of the terms of the deal. At this time, you must discuss all the nuances and come to a common opinion. The result of this stage will be the signing of an agreement and the issuance of an invoice for payment.
2. Payment according to the deal. It must be confirmed by an extract from your current account if the payment was made by bank transfer, or by checks and strict reporting forms if the payment was made in cash.
   The second option is often used by employees of an organization when they take funds on account.
3. Receipt of paid goods or services. There must be evidence that confirms that the goods were received or the service was provided, otherwise the tax service simply will not allow you to reduce the amount of tax collection.

Confirmation may be a bill of lading or a receipt in the case of receipt of goods, or a certificate of completion of work in the case of provision of a service.

What documents are required?

Depending on the operation that will be carried out, the list of required documents may vary. Let's look at the most common list of required papers. Typically, all documents are prepared either by the contractor or the supplier of goods.

The list of documents looks like this:

Features of the accounting register

After the primary documents have been prepared, they are checked for form and content. After this, if everything is done correctly, they are formalized, and the economic grouping of the data that it contains in the general accounting system takes place. To do this, all information about the balance of the company’s property, cash, and business transactions from primary (free) documents is transferred to accounting registers.

The accounting registers themselves are specialized tables that are made in a strictly specified form, in full accordance with the economic grouping of information about the company’s property and the sources of its occurrence.

All existing registers are divided into 3 groups:

• By appointment. Depending on this criterion, registers are divided into chronological, systematic, and combined. Each individual type has its own order of data saving.
• Based on the generalization of data, registers are divided into integrated and differentiated. Each can be considered from the particular to the general, or vice versa, from reporting to primary documents.
• By appearance. They can have an almost arbitrary shape: a book, a magazine, a card, printed sheets.

Accounting registers must have:

• Full title.
• The specified period of time for registering business transactions and to which billing period it relates.
• Signatures and initials of responsible persons. This makes it possible, in case of controversial issues, to find and indicate the persons who took part in the transaction.

Conducted business transactions must be reflected precisely in the period in which they were carried out. If documentary reflection cannot be done directly during a business transaction, then registration must be done immediately after its completion.

In general, accounting registers are created in order to accumulate and systematize information about primary documents accepted for registration in order to display financial statements. If the financial and primary documentation of an enterprise is stored in printed form, then, at the request of other participants in business operations or law enforcement agencies (if this is within their competence), copies must be provided by the person who compiled them and presented them for signature.

1c accounting primary documentation

While conducting financial and business activities, an accountant will have to work with a huge amount of documentation. These are various forms, contracts, reporting documentation, estimates and calculations. Some of them are not of great importance and are secondary, but there are also very important documents in which even a minor mistake can lead to disastrous consequences for the entire enterprise and for individual officials. These are the primary documents of the organization.

With the help of the 1C program you will be able to control and operate them much easier. Its functions include management of shipping and monetary documents, warehouse documents and those related to retail trade.

Today, 1C software occupies a leading position among accounting programs that are constantly used in our country.

Among the most popular 1C functions are the following:

• Full automation of all types of accounting.
• Payroll calculation for employees.
• Personnel and production accounting management.

The program has a large number of modes and settings, with which you can completely customize it for yourself, adjust it in a way that is convenient for you.

Preparation of primary documentation is a complex and painstaking task, but simply necessary. Modern computer technologies and highly qualified employees will help you. If you approach it with all responsibility and knowledge of the matter, then there will be no problems.

In contact with

1. Each fact of economic life is subject to registration with a primary accounting document. It is not allowed to accept for accounting documents documents that document facts of economic life that have not taken place, including those underlying imaginary and sham transactions.

2. Mandatory details of the primary accounting document are:

1) name of the document;

2) date of preparation of the document;

3) the name of the economic entity that compiled the document;

5) the value of the natural and (or) monetary measurement of a fact of economic life, indicating the units of measurement;

6) the name of the position of the person (persons) who completed the transaction, operation and the person(s) responsible for its execution, or the name of the position of the person(s) responsible for the execution of the accomplished event;

(see text in the previous edition)

7) signatures of the persons provided for in paragraph 6 of this part, indicating their surnames and initials or other details necessary to identify these persons.

3. The primary accounting document must be drawn up when a fact of economic life is committed, and if this is not possible, immediately after its completion. The person responsible for registration of the fact of economic life ensures the timely transfer of primary accounting documents for registration of the data contained in them in the accounting registers, as well as the reliability of this data. The person entrusted with maintaining accounting records and the person with whom an agreement has been concluded for the provision of accounting services are not responsible for the compliance of primary accounting documents compiled by other persons with accomplished facts of economic life.

(see text in the previous edition)

4. The forms of primary accounting documents are determined by the head of the economic entity on the recommendation of the official responsible for maintaining accounting records. The forms of primary accounting documents for public sector organizations are established in accordance with the budget legislation of the Russian Federation.

(see text in the previous edition)

5. The primary accounting document is drawn up on paper and (or) in the form of an electronic document signed with an electronic signature.

6. If the legislation of the Russian Federation or an agreement provides for the submission of a primary accounting document to another person or to a state body on paper, an economic entity is obliged, at the request of another person or government body, at its own expense, to make copies on paper of the primary accounting document drawn up in in the form of an electronic document.

7. Corrections are allowed in the primary accounting document, unless otherwise established by federal laws or regulatory legal acts of state accounting regulatory bodies. The correction in the primary accounting document must contain the date of the correction, as well as the signatures of the persons who compiled the document in which the correction was made, indicating their surnames and initials or other details necessary to identify these persons.

8. If, in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation, primary accounting documents, including in the form of an electronic document, are seized, copies of the seized documents, made in the manner established by the legislation of the Russian Federation, are included in the accounting documents.