Accounting your Business in Norway

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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. The XML code can be stored as e.g. acctchrt_bedrift.gnucash-xea in the norwegian account template directory, which depending on your OS/distro might be gnucash/share/gnucash/accounts/nb. Then inside of GnuCash open Fil->Ny fil and select Bedrift from the list on the 3. page. Some accounts that are not used for a consulting business have been hidden.

Norsk Kontoplan On LINUX UBUNTU 12.10

On installing this Norsk kontoplan template on Ubuntu Linux however there can accure a few problems. You will find the install to it in your "software center".

1. You don't have permission to write to the files wich is located under filesystem/usr/share/gnucash/accounts/nb in theory. So press Alt F2 to access the Run a Command prompt. Type in "gksu nautilus" and fill in your password. Go to the folder filesystem/usr/ and change its properties so that you are allowed to read/write to files in the directory and can edit files.

2. For me the problem also was that gnucash does'nt load gnucash/share/gnucash/accounts/nb. It loaded some other language directory and the command "LANGUAGE=no_NO LANG=no_NO gnucash" or "LANGUAGE=nb_NB LANG=nb_NB gnucash" to try to set the language to Norsk or Norsk Bokmål did not succeed.

Answer: nb (Norsk Bokmål) is the in Gnucash available language - nn nynorsk would be the other - and NO is the country. Please see Locale Settings for details. --Fell 00:05, 22 February 2013 (EST)

I solved this by copying the file acctchrt_bedrift.gnucash-xea to all of the language directories and finally the template "Bedrift" was available in the menu. If you just know what folder Ubuntu uses it would probably be enough to copy the file acctchrt_bedrift.gnucash-xea to that folder but if it does not work try copying it to all the language folders for instance filesystem/usr/share/gnucash/accounts/nb

Then inside of GnuCash open Fil->Ny fil and select Bedrift from the list on the 3. page.

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:

Account Code Type
Gjeld (Liabilities) Liability
Merverdiavgift (Value Added Tax) Liability
        Utgående merverdiavgift, høy sats (Payable VAT, standard tax table) 2700 Liability
    Utgående merverdiavgift, middels sats (Payable VAT, medium tax table) 2701 Liability
    Utg. MVA, kjøp tjenester fra utlandet (Payable VAT, import) 2702 Liability
    Utgående merverdiavgift, lav sats (Payable VAT, low tax table) 2703 Liability
    Inngående merverdiavgift, høy sats (Deductable VAT, standard tax table) 2710 Asset
    Inngående merverdiavgift, middels sats (Deductable VAT, medium tax table) 2711 Asset
    Inngående merverdiavgift, lav sats (Deductable VAT, low tax table) 2713 Asset
    Oppgjørskonto merverdiavgift (Settlement account for VAT) 2740 Liability

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 omsetningsoppgaven. That is when you zero-out the running balance of the accounts 2700–2713 with a transfer to or from the settlement account 2740. The resulting balance in the settlement account 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 this balance will be back at 0.

  1. For every account 2700–2713 do the following:
    1. Register a transfer dated at the last day of the period
    2. with the amount equal to the floor (integer part) of the running balance at that point in time (i.e., you are always rounding to the lowest whole krowne)
    3. if the account in question is a liability, transfer from the settlement account; if it is an asset, transfer to the settlement account
    4. any remaining fracture is transfered in a split from (or to) account 7790 andre driftskostnader, "other expenses".
    5. You can give it a description of "VAT settlement term N-YYYY".
    6. You should number the transaction with the document number that you give to the settlement form (bilagsnummeret til omsetningsoppgaven).

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.

Result over one VAT period

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
    • Other Account Name
    • Use Full Other Account Name
    • Other Account Code
    • Amount: Double
    • Totals
    • Sign Reverses: Credit Accounts
  3. General tab
    • Report name: Resultat <Your Business>
    • Stylesheet: Technicolor
    • From: <start of VAT period>
    • To: <end of VAT period>
    • Style: Single
  4. Sorting tab
    • Primary Key: Other Account Code
    • Primary Subtotal: No
    • Primary Subtotal for Date Key: Monthly
    • Primary Sort Order: Ascending
    • Secondary Key: Other Account Code
    • Secondary Subtotal: No
    • Secondary Sort Order: Ascending


Result over several VAT periods

This transaction report gives a nice overview of the results over longer periods, a whole year for example.

  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
    • Other Account Name
    • Use Full Other Account Name
    • Other Account Code
    • Amount: Double
    • Totals
    • Sign Reverses: Credit Accounts
  3. General tab
    • Report name: Årsresultat <Your Business>
    • Stylesheet: Technicolor
    • From: <start of year>
    • To: <end of year>
    • Style: Single
  4. Sorting tab
    • Primary Key: Date
    • Primary Subtotal: No
    • Primary Subtotal for Date Key: Monthly
    • Primary Sort Order: Ascending
    • Secondary Key: Other Account Code
    • Secondary Subtotal: No
    • Secondary Sort Order: Ascending
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