Bookkeeping Simplified For Small Businesses In Poland

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The Polish Parliament has agreed to implement the majority of amendments proposed by the Senate regarding simplifications in bookkeeping for small businesses. The amendments will now be forwarded to President Bronisław Komorowski for review.

The aim of the amendment to the Accounting Act is to adjust Polish law to EU regulations as well as to introduce simplifications to small companies. In line with the amendment, companies with less than 100 000 PLN income will benefit from the simplifications in bookkeeping.

According to the amendment, small companies will be able to prepare shortened financial statements comprising of only a simplified balance sheet, profit and loss and additional information with limited quantity of data. Furthermore, those companies will not need to prepare the activity report, provided that some information which had been required to be reported so far, will be disclosed in the additional information section. Small companies will be exempt from the obligation to prepare the statement of changes in the equity and cash flow statement.

The obligation to publish financial statements by the cooperatives in the Cooperatives Monitor will be cancelled, however the obligation to file the financial statements together with other documents to the National Court Register will still apply.

Some small non-governmental organisations may be able to implement simplified evidence of incomes and costs instead of managing the accounting books.

It was accepted, in line with the directive, that small companies are the following:

• joint stock companies, companies with limited liability and limited partnership companies, which meet two of three criteria; their balance in the current and previous financial year cannot exceed 4 million EUR (17 million PLN), the net income from sale of goods cannot exceed 8 million EUR (34 million PLN), average employment cannot exceed 50 people.

The government estimates that more than 40,000 entities will be able to benefit from the new regulations, which may lead to cost reductions connected with the preparation of financial statements up to 61 million PLN.

Additionally, in line with the regulation, the natural persons, civil partnerships, registered partnership and professional partnership may also apply the simplified regulations on the basis of art.2. par.2 of the accounting act provided that the income for the previous financial year is lower than the equivalent in PLN of 1 200 000 EUR.

Article supplied by The TMF Group