Features of accounting consulting services

The activities of any enterprise are connected not only directly with the production of goods, provision of services and performance of work. The manager has to solve a complex of organizational and management problems.

Not every enterprise has the means to support specialists in legal, accounting, investment and other matters. In such situations, consulting companies come to the rescue. Accounting consulting is considered one of the most promising areas in business today. Let's look further at what it is.

General information

Consulting is a set of activities for consulting management personnel and other employees on various issues. It includes analytics, research into the company’s development prospects, and the study of the organization’s resources and reserves.

There are quite a lot of companies on the market that deal with business processes. The need to contact them may be due to various reasons. For example, accounting consulting services are in demand if the company does not have a specialist or department involved in reporting.

Requirements for consulting companies

Companies specializing in accounting consulting come to the rescue. Their specialty is to monitor changes in legal acts, accumulate judicial practice on tax disputes and written explanations from the Ministry of Finance and the Federal Tax Service. In addition to consulting activities, such companies usually carry out

practical: accounting services, accounting outsourcing, auditing. It is multidisciplinary auditing and consulting groups “from the height of accumulated experience” that provide the highest quality consulting services.

Historical reference

Accounting and consulting companies began to appear in Russia at the end of the last century. This was due to changes taking place not only in the economic but also in the political system of the country. In the early 90s, there were about 20 consulting companies operating in the Russian Federation.

With the transition to a market economic model, consulting services have become in great demand. At the same time, their quality has improved significantly. Of course, competition has increased; Foreign companies appeared on the domestic market. Domestic companies, trying to maintain their place in the market, began to actively improve their activities. As a result, the field of consulting services has moved to a qualitatively new level.

Accounting consulting services

Accounting consulting provides for the provision of information services to business entities.
In the context of constantly changing tax legislation, they are becoming increasingly popular. Accounting consulting services are relevant when launching a startup and the regular functioning of a business. Consulting is a specific field of activity. There are high demands on service providers here. Specialists are required not only to have relevant basic competencies, but also to know the specifics of accounting and tax accounting in various fields, from trade to construction, from medicine to foreign trade activities.

Areas of activity

In general, the following areas of work of consulting firms can be identified:

• Providing assistance in solving management and organizational issues in problematic areas of activity.
• Consulting.
• Planning of administrative and organizational activities.

There are several principles that guide consulting companies:

• Application of scientifically based information.
• Active use of information technology in our activities.

Specialists from a consulting firm can offer their idea if it helps solve a problem the customer has.

Classification

It is carried out depending on the area in which the assistance of a consulting company is needed. The range of services offered by modern companies is quite wide. In this case, the client can choose either one or several of them. In addition, it is possible to take advantage of the full range of work.

For example, this could be accounting, auditing and consulting. In this case, the consulting company is engaged in maintaining documentation, analyzing it and advising on reporting issues.

A related area is financial consulting. It may include different services. As a rule, a consulting company conducts an audit, identifies problems, determines prospects, and formulates recommendations for the manager on profitable investments and measures aimed at strengthening the financial position of the enterprise.

In addition, consulting is provided:

• Managerial.
• Personnel.
• Investment.
• Expert.
• Educational.

Who and when may need the services of an accountant?

According to the Law “On Accounting”, all business entities are required to keep accounting records, unless they are exempted from this obligation by any other legislative act.

According to Russian legislation, there are few such exempt entities: individual entrepreneurs and branches of foreign companies.

And individual entrepreneurs (IP), who by law may not keep accounting, have a need for such accounting services as preparing and submitting a tax return, and if the IP is an employer, then add to this payment calculations and salary reporting. So you can’t do without accounting here either!

In addition, the services of an accountant may be required if:

• the company does not have a full-time accountant;
• the business owner wants to optimize the company's expenses;
• accounting restoration is required;
• the owner is not satisfied with the quality of services provided by the accountant who keeps records.

From the above it follows that there are many companies that may require accounting services.

Accounting and tax consulting

Its goal is not only to increase the efficiency of accounting for business transactions in an enterprise, but also to control the correctness of their reflection.

As a rule, accounting consulting is carried out by highly qualified specialists. The need to address them is due to the fact that the current legislation on accounting, taxes, and payroll is quite extensive. At the same time, adjustments are constantly taking place, which the management of the enterprise does not always have time to follow. In addition, there are many gaps in the current legislation, and it is sometimes quite difficult for a non-specialist to understand any controversial issues.

Accounting audit and consulting are in-demand services on the market. Not every manager is ready to spend his time and energy understanding the provisions of the PBU or Tax Code. However, finding a good accountant can be quite problematic.

Accounting consulting firms help solve pressing issues related to reporting. In addition, they can recommend a trustworthy specialist.

Accounting consulting is not just consulting. It involves a detailed analysis of issues related to reporting, with references to current legislation. It is important for a consulting company that the customer understands the information so that he receives well-founded and detailed answers to his questions.

Particular attention is paid to tax issues. As is known, violations of the Tax Code entail liability. However, quite often business entities commit unlawful actions due to a simple ignorance of the intricacies of the law. Consulting companies help prevent problems and solve existing ones.

Directions

Accounting consulting includes:

• Registration with the Federal Tax Service.
• Maintaining reports, including for special regimes.
• Restoration of accounting.
• Tax optimization.
• Formation of reporting (tax, accounting).
• Resolving accounting issues, including servicing the activities of the accounting department at the enterprise.
• Checking compliance with legislation when carrying out business transactions, analyzing their feasibility.
• Control of the availability and movement of property, use of financial and labor resources.
• Assessing the correctness and timeliness of settlements with suppliers and other contractors, with payroll employees, and with the budget for fees/taxes.
• Consulting on the preparation of financial statements under IFRS.

In addition, specialists from a consulting company can analyze the correctness of accounting in the automated 1C system.

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Can marketing expenses be taken into account when reducing the tax base? What documents and how should they be drawn up so that the tax authorities do not have any claims when writing off expenses for consulting services? What demands of tax authorities turn out to be unfounded and can be challenged in court? You will find the answer to these and some other questions in this article on the design of consulting services.

In the next issue: The main reason for the lack of profitability of commercial enterprises, according to K. Baksht, is...
. . You will learn about this in the next issue from the article by Konstantin Baksht “Your business is not making enough money” Registration of consulting services in tax accounting
Writing off funds for consulting services alarms the tax authorities, who see this as an attempt to evade paying taxes. Marketing services present additional complexity in registration, since the term marketing, an economic term, and its definition are not contained in either tax or accounting legislation.

Particular wariness regarding the justification of costs for consulting services can also be explained by the fact that they are of an intangible nature. Consulting services, as a rule, do not have a tangible form, they are most often unique, and strict standards cannot be applied to them. In addition, for some types of consulting services there is still the possibility of multiple resale of the same service result.

In connection with the above, control over the setting of prices for consulting services and even the very fact of their provision is quite complex, and sometimes almost impossible.

However, according to paragraphs. 15 clause 1 art. 264 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation, expenses for consulting and similar services are expenses accepted for income tax purposes. In order for expenses to be recognized (clause 1 of Article 252 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation), two conditions must be met:

a) Expenses must be documented

c) Expenses must be economically justified.

Therefore, tax authorities have the right to demand, within the framework of the economic justification of the expenses incurred, evidence that services of a certain nature were actually provided and provided in a certain volume. Why are documents confirming the results of services checked?

Among them, you need to list primary documents confirming, in accordance with tax accounting rules, the fact of provision of services:

1. Certificate of acceptance of services. It is the primary document reflecting the costs of services in tax accounting.

2. Payment documents. If the cash method of cost accounting is used, then documents confirming payment for services must be provided as confirmation of costs (clause 3 of Article 273 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation): payment orders, cash orders, acts of mutual settlements.

3. Agreement. Although the legislation does not provide for other (except for acts and payment documents) mandatory primary documents for recognizing expenses for consulting services, in practice, tax authorities require the presentation of a service agreement.

In order to prove the economic justification of expenses for consulting services, a taxpayer writing off expenses for consulting services, in addition to the above, must have documents drawn up based on the results of the work performed, which may include:

4. Reports, conclusions, reviews, analytical materials, etc.

In the absence of these documents, tax authorities may doubt the reality of the provision of services or the necessity of their provision, since recognition or non-recognition of expenses under an agreement for the provision of consulting services depends on their documentation. Lack of proper documentary evidence of expenses may result in tax fines (clause 1 of Article 252 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation).

The courts, in the absence of any documents drawn up based on the results of the work, also accept the position of the tax authorities and do not recognize the economic justification of the services.

In addition to reports confirming the economic feasibility of providing services, in some cases other evidence may be required from the taxpayer. Therefore, it is advisable to save all existing documents, even correspondence. The taxpayer has the right to provide any evidence of the feasibility and necessity of specific services. He must be ready to provide not only documents on the results of the work, but also evidence that the services provided are relevant to his production activities, and evidence of the appropriateness of the cost of the services.

It must be added that documents confirming the provision of services must be stored for a certain period prescribed by law. Storage periods are established by the List of standard management documents generated in the activities of organizations, indicating storage periods, approved by the Federal Archive on October 6, 2000 (as amended and supplemented on October 27, 2003). The storage periods for documents documenting the results of services exceed or are equal to the storage periods for documents for tax control, namely four years (clause 8, clause 1, article 23 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation).

Thus, with appropriate registration, expenses for consulting services directly related to the current activities of the company, production and sale of goods (works, services) can be taken into account to reduce the taxable profit of the current reporting (tax) period. They are classified as indirect expenses and are written off in full to reduce the tax base in the reporting (tax) period in which they occurred (clauses 1 and 2 of Article 318 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation).

What documents are required to recognize expenses for consulting services?

Relations under an agreement for the provision of consulting services, including marketing, can be attributed to the norms of Chapter 39 “Paid provision of services” of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation (Civil Code of the Russian Federation). The parties to the agreement are the Customer and the Contractor. The parties to the contract can be both individuals and legal entities, unless otherwise follows from the nature of the service.

The executor of a contract for the provision of paid services is obliged to perform a certain action (or carry out a certain activity) on the basis of the Customer’s Technical Specifications (Article 779 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation), and the customer is obliged to pay for the result of the work performed.

In other words, from a legal point of view, a contract can be considered concluded if it lists certain actions that the contractor must perform or indicates certain activities that he must carry out. At the same time, when carrying out a certain action provided for by the contract, there is no material result, otherwise, according to the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, a work contract should have been concluded. Those. from the point of view of the Civil Code, it is not necessary to record a certain result when providing consulting services, but tax legislation requires the provision of a document recording the provision of services (clause 1 of Article 252 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation)

To avoid possible disputes, you should include in the Agreement a clear description of the services and indicate the procedure for their acceptance according to the certificate.

In paragraph 1 of the information letter of the Presidium of the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation dated September 29, 1999 N 48 “On some issues of judicial practice that arise when considering disputes related to contracts for the provision of legal services” it is said that when considering disputes it is necessary to proceed from the fact that the contract can be considered concluded, if it lists certain actions that the performer is obliged to perform, or indicates certain activities that he is obliged to carry out. If the contract specifies a specific activity, the range of possible actions of the contractor can be determined on the basis of negotiations and correspondence preceding the conclusion of the contract, practices established in the mutual relations of the parties, business customs, subsequent behavior of the parties, etc. (Article 431 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation).

The form of the act is not established by the State Statistics Committee of Russia, therefore each company develops it independently and approves it in the appendix to the order on accounting policies. If the costs to be written off are significant, it is desirable that the acceptance certificates for consulting services, in addition to the standard phrase that the services were provided in full and the parties have no claims, contain additional information about the service provided.

There must be a brief description of the service, in the wording in which it was used in the contract. From this formulation the composition and nature of the services provided should be visible (letter of the Ministry of Finance of Russia dated April 10, 2000 No. 04-02-5/1). For expensive services, it is also a good idea to include a link to the report provided by the developer, as well as an explanation of the purpose for which the services were provided.

Tax authorities do not have the right to demand a unified form or the presence of unified wording in the act, since there are none. Also, they should not require a full description of the services in the act; it is enough to include only a brief description of them in the act.

Contractor invoice

Report or other final document

Although, as in the previous case, there are no standard, legally prescribed forms, it is recommended to include the following data in the report:

— for whom and by whom the work was carried out to provide consulting services (legal entities or individuals);

— period of time for performing the work;

— goal (linking the goal to making a profit or avoiding possible losses);

- names of companies, consultants and subcontractors who carried out any significant part of the work

— a description of the expected and actual scope of the problems;

- size, nature and geography of distribution of the subject of work, planned and actually received data;

— the methods of work, obtaining information and evaluation methods used;

—

indication of sources of information;

— conclusions and recommendations obtained;

— used questionnaires and other materials.

When checking, tax authorities can compare the execution of contracts for the provision of consulting services with the obligations that were performed by the provider of the services and are displayed in the Report on the work done for the provision of services. Therefore, the paragraph “Subject of the agreement” must correspond to the materials and wording presented in the Report.

Accounting registration of consulting services

As an example of displaying consulting services in accounting, we will give the design of marketing services for market research. Not being an accounting expert, the author cites excerpts from an article by E.V. Orlov, Head of the Audit Department of LLC "Company Premium Consult" "Accounting and tax accounting of marketing services" (

Source
:
Tax Herald Publishing House) without additional comments.

“In accordance with clause 7 of the Accounting Regulations “Accounting Policy of the Organization” PBU 1/98, approved by order of the Ministry of Finance of Russia dated December 09, 1998 N 60n, and clause 10 of the Regulations on accounting and financial reporting in the Russian Federation, approved by order Ministry of Finance of Russia dated July 29, 1998 N 34n, the accounting policy of the organization must ensure the requirement of priority of economic content over form, which means the reflection in accounting of the facts of economic activity based not so much on their legal form, but on the economic content of the facts and business conditions”...

“Consequently, in order to recognize in accounting costs under contracts for the provision of marketing services, it is necessary to proceed from the economic content of such services.

The difficulty in determining the source of covering marketing expenses is due to the uncertainty in the interpretation of the very concept of “marketing expenses for sales”, intended to summarize information about expenses associated with the sale of products, goods, works and services, with the following entries:

D-t 44 “Sales expenses” D-t 60 “Settlements with suppliers and contractors” - the dealer’s invoice for the services provided in the sale of communication services was accepted for payment;

D-t 19 “Value added tax on acquired assets”, sub-account “VAT on acquired General business expenses” K-t 60 - the invoice of the marketing agency for services for the current study of market conditions as consulting services was accepted for payment;

D-19, subaccount “VAT on purchased Deferred Expenses” with subsequent write-off to the cost of sales as the results of marketing research are used in business activities in accordance with the write-off option adopted in the order on accounting policies, with the following entries being made:

Dt 60, subaccount “Calculations for advances issued”, Kt 51 “Settlement accounts” - reflects the amount of the advance issued for the provision of services for market research in connection with the launch of a new product on the basis of an agreement, an invoice of a marketing agency and a bank statement ;

D-t 97 K-t 60 - recognized as deferred expenses are the costs of researching market conditions in connection with the launch of a new product based on the acceptance certificate for marketing services provided;

D-19, subaccount “VAT on purchased Settlements on advances issued” - reflects the decrease in debt to the marketing agency due to the previously transferred advance;

Dt 68 “Calculations for taxes and fees”, subaccount “Calculations for VAT”, Kt 19, subaccount “VAT on purchased expenses of the organization” PBU 10/99, approved by order of the Ministry of Finance of Russia dated 05/06/1999 N 33n) must be taken into account based on the assumption of temporary certainty of the facts of economic activity. This means that the facts of the organization’s economic activities relate to the reporting period in which they took place, regardless of the actual time of receipt or payment of funds associated with these facts. They are reflected in the accounting records and included in the financial statements of the periods in which they were actually carried out (clause 18 of PBU 10/99.)"

All of the above also applies to accounting for other consulting services, since marketing services are a special case of consulting services.

Know where to place the straw Controversial cases

Justification of the economic feasibility of expenses for consulting services must be provided starting from the stage of selecting a consulting agency or consultant.

1. This, first of all, concerns expensive projects that cause excessive suspicions from tax authorities regarding the illegality of writing off expenses. To protect yourself from claims, in the case of large, expensive projects, it is advisable to conduct a preliminary study of companies providing the necessary services and evaluate the proposals of several companies. If such work has not been carried out and there is no evidence of its implementation, then the costs may be considered unjustified.

Those. the company must have documents indicating the reality of prices. For example, a memo stating that for certain reasons a suitable specialist should be identified. Further, based on this memo, an order is issued to appoint an employee responsible for the search. The above internal documents are accompanied by written proposals from several service providers. Responses from companies that offered “cheap” services compared to the chosen one should be excluded, so that later you don’t have to prove in court that “the more expensive the fur, the better it is.”

If a company wants to use the services of a counterparty with the highest prices compared to the market average, then you need to stock up on a resume or other documents, for example a list of clients, confirming the high reliability and quality of services of the selected counterparty.

2. Since the fact of economic justification of expenses can be confirmed only for the purposes of confirming income or avoiding losses, then if the cost of consulting services is significant, and therefore the amount reducing taxable profit is also large, it is a good idea to first draw up a simplified business plan showing the payback expected expenses. Further, it is desirable that the agreement and act echo the wording of the drawn up business plan.

Pay special attention to the report, although it is not a mandatory document, but from the point of view of proving economic feasibility, it must be presented. To avoid additional nagging from tax officials, do not forget to make sure that the report indicates the goals, subject and methods of providing advice.

3. Information about the purpose, subject and methods of providing consulting services must be identical in all other documents - contract, service acceptance certificate, invoices, report.

4. Another source of complaints….

You can read the continuation of the article on the SOS website [email protected] in the Current Topic section on the page https://www.sos-consulting.ru/ru/akt/akt15/
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Start of interaction

As you can see, consulting companies solve quite complex problems. Accordingly, specialists must have the necessary qualifications, experience, and knowledge. Choosing the right company is quite difficult. Experts recommend consulting with business partners who have already contacted such companies.

Interaction with a consulting company begins with an initial consultation. Based on its results, an agreement is concluded. The parties in the document establish:

• The time frame within which consulting services will be provided.
• List of events.
• Size, payment procedure.
• Responsibilities of the parties to the transaction.
• Conditions under which the amount of remuneration may change.
• The procedure for terminating the contract, including early termination.

The contract can be concluded for a short or long period. This will depend on the nature and complexity of the problem.

Work process

After signing the contract, the collection of information necessary to effectively solve the problem begins. At this stage, the consulting firm's staff must assess the severity of the problem.

The next step is to develop a solution. This stage of work can be considered the main one. The task of specialists is to draw up a plan to effectively solve the problem. In this case, as a rule, several options are formed, from which the most effective and economical is selected.

The next stage is the implementation of the decision and monitoring the execution of the plan. Employees of either a consulting company or employees of the customer company can monitor the accuracy of compliance with the plan. In the latter case, training is carried out for employees of the organization.