Difference between revisions of "Accounting your Business in Norway"

Revision as of 21:13, 15 June 2007

For now, there are only a few notes on this topic. It should grow to a usable document over time. Norwegian terms are emphasized.

Account tree

Uploads have been disabled on this wiki. You may cut and paste the XML from Kontoplan. Some accounts that are not used for a consulting business have been hidden.

VAT Accounting

The above account tree has several accounts for tracking Value Added Tax or Merverdiavgift, MVA. I grouped them together in a place holder, but the place holder account itself has no real accounting value:

In the course of business, the tax split of transactions are filling up accounts 2700–2713.

Pay-time

At the end of a VAT period you should prepare to fill out omsetningsoppgave. That is when you transfer the opposite amount of the running ballance of the accounts 2700–2713 to the settlement account 2740. The resulting balance is the VAT that you owe to the state (or vice versa if the balance is negative). When you pay this (or receive payment) then the balance will be back at 0.

How to show the results for a period

Resultat is the difference between income (inntekter) and expenses (kostnader). At the end of an accounting period (når du avslutter regnskapet), this difference is to be transferred to the equity account (egenkapital). I skip setting up an account for the result, which you would do when accounting manually, and instead transfer from the income and expense accounts directly to the equity account. This way, the result appears in the running balance. The amounts to be transferred are equal to the running balance in the account in question, but opposit in sign so that the running balance in the income or expense is back at 0 after the transaction.

Egenkapital should also reflect the value that you have taken out of your business for living expenses. To do that, you should repeat the above procedure for Privatkonto and sub-accounts. However, this amount it not part of resultatet and therefore it is important to exclude these transactions from the report below.

To show the result, make a transaction report with the following options:

1. Accounts tab
   • Report Accounts

     Only select Egenkapital

   • Filter Accounts

     Select Privatkonto and all subaccounts

   • Filter Type: Exclude Transactions to/from Filter Accounts
   • Void Transactions? Non-void only
2. Display tab

   Select only the following:

   • Date
   • Description
   • Other Account Name
   • Use Full Other Account Name
   • Other Account Code
   • Amount: Double
   • Totals
   • Sign Reverses: Credit Accounts

3. General tab
   • Report name: Resultat
   • Stylesheet: Technicolor
   • From: ...
   • To: ...
   • Style: Single
4. Sorting tab
   • Primary Key: Date
   • Primary Subtotal for Date Key: Monthly
   • Primary Sort Order: Ascending
   • Secondary Key: Other Account Code
   • Secondary Subtotal: No
   • Secondary Sort Order: Ascending