Accounting in Germany. Thomas Westphal

Accounting is to be understood as reporting required by law. The accounting regulation on which this article is based follows the HGB. However, other accounting regulations are also fulfilled with the bookkeeping in Germany (for example IFRS and US-GAAP). This then requires parallel accounting from which several financial statements (according to the different accounting regulations) can be prepared.

It is expedient to subdivide the generic term "accounting" into the Financial accounting, from which annual financial statements (balance sheet, profit and loss account) are developed, and

the company accounts, which are used for internal cost recording and cost accounting (price calculation).

Bookkeeping is a component of business accounting. In addition to financial and operational accounting, this includes business statistics and comparative accounting as well as planning accounting (estimates for future income and expenditure).

Accounting" is often used as a synonym for "bookkeeping". This does not seem appropriate, since

the term "accounting" is mostly used in laws,

in practice, "accounting" is often understood to mean only the organisational unit of a company in which bookkeeping is carried out.

This article explains financial accounting and in particular the methodology of double-entry bookkeeping. This is the method of keeping proper books of account generally used in the private sector and required by law for merchants. Small traders and freelancers can account for their business according to the simpler revenue surplus statement.

Since the end of the 20th century, public administration has been supplementing cameralistic accounting with elements of the double-entry accounting method known in this field as Doppik. In Germany, the first pilot tests for the application of double-entry accounting systems at the municipal level took place in the 1990s. Since 1 January 2010 (entry into force), there has been a general legal basis for the application of double-entry accounting (Doppik) in the administrations of the Federation and the Länder (§ 49a HGrG) in the form of the amended Budget Principles Act (§ 1a, § 7a HGrG). The regional and local authorities were given the opportunity to independently organise the process of introducing other accounting systems in addition to cameralistics through their own legislation. The partially applied "state double-entry accounting" was subsequently supplemented with "municipal double-entry accounting". In this way, the basic rules of commercial accounting and balancing found their way into public budgeting and accounting. In the municipal sector, double-entry accounting led to a greatly changed structure of the budget statutes.

Objectives and tasks of financial accounting

an overview of the company's assets and liabilities at all times. At least once a year, the asset and debt situation must be documented in the balance sheet and evidenced by an inventory.

Identify and systematically record all transactions that change assets and liabilities.

Determination of success by comparing income and expenses. This is done at least once a year in the profit and loss account.

Provision of the legally required information on the basis of which the tax authorities carry out the taxation of the company, as well as further information for authorities, courts, banks or other external addressees in the prescribed form.

Addressees of results from financial accounting

internal addressees:

the entrepreneur himself: He cannot keep all transactions in his head. He needs a constant overview for his commercial decisions.

Investors participating in the enterprise: Many enterprises are organised in the form of a company. Participating shareholders demand - constantly or at least periodically - meaningful, verifiable information about the situation of the company.

Employees and their representatives

external addressees:

External capital providers, especially banks

Creditor

Tax office

Public

If different addressees require different standards for reporting from the financial accounts (balance sheet, profit and loss account, cash flow statement, among others), this may require parallel accounting.

Duty to keep accounts

In addition to the entrepreneur's own interest, there are legal regulations in which the obligation to keep accounts is laid down. The accounting regulations of the German Commercial Code (HGB) apply to merchants and those voluntarily preparing accounts:

According to commercial law

"Every merchant [as defined in § 1-7 HGB] is obliged to keep books of account and to show in them his commercial transactions and the situation of his assets in accordance with the principles of proper accounting."

- Section 238 (1) sentence 1 HGB

Tradesmen whose companies require a business operation set up in a commercial manner according to their type and scope or who are entered in the commercial register are merchants and thus obliged to keep accounts.

Section 241a HGB (inserted by the Accounting

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