How To Deal With Accounting Files?

Most of the private enterprises and foreign-funded enterprises have puzzled how to deal with files after bankruptcy and liquidation: should these files be retained or discarded? The management of enterprise accounting files is trivial and cumbersome. However, through investigation, we find that there are many problems behind the most neglected works.

Is accounting archives retained or thrown?

"We are a foreign-funded enterprise and have just completed bankruptcy liquidation, but we do not know these accounts.

The thirteenth provision of the archives management act, which has been put into effect since January 1, 1999, stipulates that the accounting files formed before the termination and cancellation of registration procedures are terminated due to cancellation, dissolution, bankruptcy or other reasons, shall be managed or pferred to the relevant archives by the competent departments or property owners of the terminating units.

Where there are other provisions in laws and administrative regulations, such provisions shall apply.

For foreign-funded enterprises, because they have no competent departments in China and can not carry archives out of the country, their files can only be handed over to local archives.

And archives staff said: "our archives staff is limited, the cost of management is high, and the accounting archives of various units are so numerous that all of them are kept by the archives to be obviously unrealistic."

"As a result, when a Sino foreign joint venture has been cancelled, the relevant personnel of the company have divided the file and pferred it to the Chinese joint venture, and then gradually lost it."

A person familiar with the matter told reporters.

It is not just foreign-funded enterprises that are facing such difficulties.

With the rapid development of the economy and the increasingly fierce market competition, many enterprises' survival time is getting shorter and shorter, leaving behind a mess of accounting archives management.

The problem of accounting records is "leaving or throwing" in the industry.

An accountant in charge of a foreign-funded enterprise believes that after the liquidation of the company, the company has completed the cancellation of the business and the legal rights and obligations of the company, and has lost its legal responsibility. What else can be traced back? Another accountant retorted: "there are important tax information in the accounting archives. After many real estate development companies were founded two or three years later, they finished the project and cancelled the item company, so that the Inland Revenue Department could not receive the land value-added tax of the item company."

Which of the electronic files should be backed up by paper?

The way of accounting archives management is also the bewilderment faced by many accountants.

An accountant in charge of a company complained to the reporter: "our unit's electronic files are recorded on CDs every Monday. Now, the CD has not been released.

If you print them out, it's even harder and harder.

According to our reporter's investigation, the same is the central enterprises, some central enterprises do not print ledger, only the certificate receipt is saved by paper.

However, some central enterprises strictly follow the requirement to use the server to make AB backup every week, and all the subsidiary ledgers and accounting vouchers should be printed out for paper preservation.

As for how to save electronic files, central enterprises have not yet unified, let alone private enterprises.

But for those completely passed

The practice of some units is to print out all the accounting records required for the fiscal year after receiving the audit notice of the tax bureau.

But some units also reflected that some tax bureaus only looked at manual accounts, and printed books could not pass.

The reason is that the tax bureau is worried that the electronic files provided by the enterprise may be modified. Especially, some accounting software in China can copy several accounts, and can be revoked and amended. Even some enterprises can make accounts for banks, tax bureaus, industry and Commerce bureaus and accounting firms.

This is also a challenge for tax inspectors.

Accounting archives outsourcing or development direction

The existing "archives management measures", after all, were the product of 10 years ago, and have not adapted to the development and needs of enterprises nowadays.

With regard to the management of accounting archives, the staff of the above accounting offices suggest that under the computerization situation, large enterprises should establish at least "disaster recovery centers" to ensure that they will not be lost under any circumstances, while small and medium-sized enterprises should have a standardized manual on the management of accounting archives, so that enterprises can carry out relevant work according to their actual conditions.

The reporter learned from a person close to the policy maker that the management of accounting records is part of the basic accounting work. Some problems have been found in the custody of accounting files and the backup and preservation of electronic files after the bankruptcy and liquidation of foreign-funded enterprises and private enterprises. At present, appropriate solutions are being sought.

Accounting supervisor or financial manager of some enterprises suggests that accounting archives management is an important and cumbersome work, so it can be entrusted to a service outsourcing company.

One of the accounting executives has made some related attempts to scan the archival accounting information for each company. Unfortunately, it has not been successful because the state has no relevant legislative provisions and many companies are worried about information leakage.