Year-end closing for your GmbH

What the law asks of your GmbH

A GmbH is a legal entity. That means it must always keep books and prepare accounts, whatever its turnover. The annual accounts consist of the balance sheet, the income statement and the notes. Each figure is shown next to the prior-year value.

The accounts must be ready within six months of the year end and put before the shareholders’ meeting. The meeting approves them and decides what happens to the profit. They are signed by whoever chairs the management and by the person responsible for financial reporting.

Sources: Code of Obligations, Art. 804, 805 and 957 to 958f (fedlex.admin.ch)

Balance sheet and income statement under CO 959a and 959b

The law sets a minimum structure for both. The balance sheet separates current and non-current assets, short-term and long-term liabilities, and equity. In your GmbH’s equity, the nominal capital comes first. Reserves, retained earnings and the result for the year follow.

Bilanzi shows the income statement by nature of expense, in a stepped layout. It starts from net revenue and deducts materials, staff costs, other operating expenses and depreciation. Then come the financial result, non-operating and exceptional items, and direct taxes. At the bottom is the profit or loss for the year.

In Bilanzi, every account carries a reporting group, and the group decides its line. If you set up your business with the Swiss SME chart of accounts, Bilanzi assigns the groups at the same time. An account without a group does not drop out. It sits under «Not classified yet» until you assign it.

Both statements are available all year, not just at the end. Under each line you see the accounts behind it, and you can print both.

Sources: Code of Obligations, Art. 959a and 959b (fedlex.admin.ch)

What needs posting before the close

A close is only as good as the entries before it. Your receipts should be complete and your bank accounts reconciled. The overview shows how many receipts are missing and which payments are not matched yet.

Some entries Bilanzi cannot judge for you. The checklist names them anyway, so that nobody assumes they are done:

• Depreciation is worked out by the fixed asset register from your plan, straight-line or declining balance, as a draft entry. You set the useful life and the rate.
• Provisions, accruals and deferrals you post yourself as ordinary entries.
• You do the stock count yourself and then post the change in inventory.
• You estimate the tax provision yourself or with your fiduciary.
• Private use shares, for example for a company car that is also driven privately, you record yourself too.

The close in five steps

In Bilanzi, the close always runs in the same order. Bilanzi only offers you the next step, and each one goes into the audit trail with a name and a time.

• Prepare: Bilanzi works out the checklist and posts nothing yet. Blocking items include an open draft entry, an account without a reporting group, or a VAT return that has not been finalised. These cannot be clicked away.
• Closing entry: Bilanzi proposes an entry that brings every income and expense account to zero. The result goes to the account for the annual profit or loss, usually 2979. It is dated on the last day of the financial year.
• Freeze: the balance sheet, income statement and trial balance are fixed. If you closed the prior year in Bilanzi, it appears alongside. Frozen figures are never recalculated.
• Record the approval: you note which body approved the accounts, on which day, and who is responsible.
• Open the following year: Bilanzi posts the opening entry from the frozen balance sheet accounts. The new year starts with exactly the closing figures of the old one.

Profit appropriation, locking and retention

After the close, the result for the year sits on its own equity account. The shareholders’ meeting decides what happens to a profit. You then post that decision as an ordinary entry in the new year, for example to reserves or retained earnings.

So that nothing more lands in the old year, you lock its period with a short reason. After that, Bilanzi refuses any entry in that period.

Books, accounting vouchers and the annual report must be kept for ten years from the end of the financial year. Bilanzi tracks these periods per financial year. You can take your books out at any time as CSV files, each with a checksum.

Sources: Code of Obligations, Art. 958f (fedlex.admin.ch), Ordinance on Commercial Accounting, GeBüV (fedlex.admin.ch)

What does not work yet

Bilanzi does not produce the notes. Your GmbH needs them all the same, for example for the accounting principles applied and the number of full-time positions. You write them yourself or with your fiduciary.

Bilanzi produces no cash flow statement and no management report. The law only asks for them from companies subject to an ordinary audit. The income statement is available by nature of expense only, not by function.

Bilanzi creates no signature. The recorded approval is a note, not a signed annual report. The GmbH’s tax return and withholding tax on a dividend are handled outside Bilanzi.

Sources: Code of Obligations, Art. 959c and 961 (fedlex.admin.ch)

Frequently asked questions

Related topics

• Accounting for your GmbH

  A Swiss GmbH has to keep full books, however small it is. Here is what the Code of Obligations requires and how you do it with Bilanzi. The core bookkeeping is included in the Free plan.

• The VAT return

  Bilanzi works out the VAT return from the lines you post anyway. You check it position by position and file it with the ESTV yourself.