Notes from an inadequate chief accountant: why accountants are underpaid

Can an LLC operate without an accountant?

By law, all Russian organizations are required to maintain accounting records. Does this mean that every organization must have an accountant on staff? No, that doesn't mean there are other options. Details are in our article.

Is an accountant required in an LLC?

Let us turn to Article 7 of Law No. 402-FZ of December 6, 2011. “On Accounting”, which regulates the rules for organizing accounting.

According to this article, a manager has three options:

1. Assign accounting responsibilities to the chief accountant or other employee of the organization. With the exception of credit institutions, the chief accountant should be responsible for their accounting.
2. Conclude an agreement for accounting services with a specialized organization or with a private specialist. In this case, the executor-individual must meet the requirements of paragraph 4 of Article 7 of the same law, and the executor-organization must have on its staff a specialist who meets these requirements.
3. Work without an accountant and do accounting yourself, but only if the organization maintains accounting in a simplified form and submits simplified reporting, that is, it belongs to the category of small enterprises.

As you can see, the law does not require you to have a full-time accountant. An LLC without an accountant is not a violation. The organization itself decides whether to hire an accountant or outsource this function.

Taxes and contributions for self-employment

An accountant as a self-employed citizen is required to pay:

• 4% of your income when collaborating with individuals;
• 6% when working under a contract with individual entrepreneurs or legal entities.

No special reporting is required. Tax payment is carried out automatically using a special application.

Important! At his own request, a person can pay an insurance premium, which will be taken into account in the length of service when calculating a pension in the future.

Is it difficult to do accounting for limited liability companies?

The answer to this question depends on many factors that determine the volume and complexity of accounting work. We list the main ones:

1. Selected tax regime. Will you work for OSNO, simplified tax system or UTII? Each mode has its own nuances, and it is possible to decide which of them will be easier and more optimal for a particular organization to operate in only after a thorough analysis of the specifics of the LLC’s activities. But with a high degree of certainty we can say that accounting in the SOS regime will be the most labor-intensive.

An example of organizing accounting in an LLC

What steps does an LLC need to take to organize correct and reliable accounting at the enterprise ? Let's look at a sample plan that will help you accomplish this difficult task:

Step 1. Select the optimal tax regime (the regime must be decided before submitting documents for registration to the Federal Tax Service). It must be remembered that under different regimes the tax burden of the same company may differ several times.

Types of accounting services for individual entrepreneurs

In order to understand the question of whether an accountant is needed for an individual entrepreneur, let’s consider what types of accounting services exist. Depending on the type of activity, each individual entrepreneur will be able to choose the most optimal option for himself.

So, how can you keep accounting records for an individual entrepreneur?

Staff accountant

This option is suitable for those entrepreneurs who need to maintain complex financial records, or those who plan to hire employees. In this case, the full-time accountant will be fully supported by the individual entrepreneur.

Let us note that on average in Russia (according to data for September 2014), the monthly salary of an ordinary accountant was 29,739 rubles. The chief accountant has a higher salary - about 43,875 rubles.

In addition, an individual entrepreneur must pay insurance premiums (PFR, Social Insurance Fund) at his own expense. The amount of contributions is 30% of payments to the employee.

Do-it-yourself accounting using online services

Using free online services can be a good solution for those individual entrepreneurs who are good at using a computer and for those who understand the intricacies of accounting and taxation. To do your own accounting, you also need to have time.

Please note that free online services are only an auxiliary tool. They are not intended to validate entered data. They simply help generate reporting.

Accountant for individual entrepreneurs on different taxation systems

Now let's find out some of the features of accounting for an individual entrepreneur under different taxation regimes.

Do you need an accountant for an individual entrepreneur on OSNO?

The most complex tax regime in the Russian Federation is the general tax system (OSNO). Many individual entrepreneurs have to switch to this tax regime due to the increasing level of competition. Consumer organizations prefer to deal with full VAT payers.

Keeping accounting on the general taxation system is quite a complex matter, and if an individual entrepreneur wants to conduct his business calmly and avoid penalties, then when using this regime, it is best for him to seek help from qualified and competent people (an accountant or an outsourcing company).

Dismissal of the chief accountant of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation in 2020

The chief accountant is a significant figure in any organization, the main employee of the enterprise, and therefore the dismissal of the chief accountant will affect the work of the entire enterprise. The chief accountant, according to the constituent documents, is appointed to a future position and dismissed from it by the management of the organization.

There is no special procedure for dismissing an accountant in the labor legislation of the Russian Federation. An employee may be removed from his position on his own initiative or on the initiative of the employer.

Dismissal at your own request

In this case, the dismissal procedure applies, which is provided for in Art. 80 Labor Code of the Russian Federation. Timing for dismissal of the chief accountant - he must notify his manager of the decision in writing two weeks before his departure.

The notice period begins on the next day after the employer receives the employee’s resignation letter. When the notice period regarding dismissal expires, the employee has the right to terminate work.

If an agreement has been established between the employer and the employee, then termination of the employment contract is possible earlier than the expiration of the notice of removal from office.

The employer should not create any obstacles for the employee upon dismissal (filing reports, preparing an annual balance sheet). During this period, the chief accountant transfers his affairs to an employee who replaces him.

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Dismissal of the chief accountant at the initiative of the employer

To the question: “Under what article can the chief accountant be fired?” The answer is quite simple. An employer may have certain grounds for dismissing a chief accountant if:

• – ownership of the organization’s property passes to another person (4 paragraph 81 of Article 81 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation). In this situation, the new owner has the right to terminate the employment contract with the chief accountant only within three months from the date of transfer of ownership. The dismissed person is paid mandatory compensation, which is equal to three average monthly wages;
• – dismissal of the chief accountant under clause 5 of Art. 81 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation is not a one-time failure to fulfill labor obligations without good reason in the presence of disciplinary sanctions. When the chief accountant has many disciplinary sanctions (reprimands), then his dismissal will not be a problem;
• – dismissal of the chief accountant under clause 9 of Art. 81 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation - the adoption of an unfounded decision, which entailed a violation of the integrity and safety of property, its unlawful use or other damage to the enterprise. When an employer wants to fire the chief accountant under Art. 81 clause 9, he must prove the guilt of the chief accountant, argue for the unfounded decision made by him, which led to quite unpleasant consequences. Otherwise, the dismissed employee has every right to go to court and challenge the wording of the dismissal. As a result, the company may have to reinstate the former employee and pay compensation for forced absence;
• – liquidation of an enterprise or termination of activities by an individual entrepreneur;
• – reduction of staff of an organization or individual entrepreneur. In general cases, dismissal of the chief accountant due to staff reduction is impossible. There will always be a need for an employee who can take everything into account and calculate taxes. But there are cases when in small organizations the manager undertakes to keep records, then the chief accountant can really be dismissed from the organization.
• – inadequacy for the position held due to insufficient qualifications, which is confirmed by the results of the completed certification at the company;
• – change of the organization’s name by the owner;
• – one-time gross violation of labor obligations by the chief accountant:
• – absenteeism during the entire working day, absence from work for more than four hours in a row during the working day, without good reason;
• – committing theft of someone else’s property at the place of work, its intentional destruction, damage, waste, which is established by a court verdict or a judge’s ruling that has entered into legal force;
• – violation of labor protection regulations in a situation if it entailed serious consequences or created a threat of their occurrence;
• – committing guilty actions by an employee who services monetary or commodity valuables, if they become the basis for a rapid loss of trust on the part of the employer;
• – the employee commits an immoral offense while performing an educational function;
• – presentation of false documents to management when signing an employment agreement;
• – disclosure of secrets protected by law (commercial, state, official), which became known to the employee during the performance of labor obligations, as well as disclosure of personal data of the organization’s workers. But in this case, the manager should correctly assess the current situation. The current legislation states that a trade secret is definitely not information that may be contained in the constituent documents of a legal entity, documents on the solvency of an organization, tax reporting (report of losses, profits), and therefore the transfer of such information to someone should not be considered as disclosure of commercial secrets.

It is worth noting an important point that the new owner has every right to terminate the employment agreement with the chief accountant within 3 months, starting from the moment ownership rights are transferred to him (Article 75 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation).

Also, the chief accountant can be dismissed (Article 76 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation) if:

• he showed up for work in a state of drug, alcohol or toxic intoxication;
• an employee of the organization received a medical certificate stating that this work is contraindicated for him;
• according to the requirements of government officials.

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Transfer of affairs of the chief accountant upon his dismissal

After the dismissal of the chief accountant, his affairs may be taken over by:

1. supervisor;
2. a person who temporarily performs the duties of the chief accountant;
3. new chief accountant.

An important point is that the chief accountant removed from office cannot be released from liability if he committed any violations while working in his position. The procedure for transferring the affairs of the chief accountant is very important, because only in this case will the new employee be able to understand the real state of affairs regarding the accounting department.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4eGPGGC9r8

It should also be taken into account that the procedure for dismissing the chief accountant of any enterprise can often become the subject of a labor dispute in cases where the employer’s legal approach to this issue does not comply with the norms of modern Russian legislation.

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Compensation after dismissal

The chief accountant must receive his usual salary for the previously unpaid period of work. Next, he, like any employee who quits, must be paid monetary compensation for all unused vacations and severance pay (Article 178 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation).

Source: https://IPinform.ru/kadry/uvolnenie-rabotnikov/uvolnenie-glavnogo-buxgaltera-s-zanimaemoj-dolzhnosti.html

When might the services of an accountant be needed for an LLC?

Accountant services to one degree or another are in demand among all forms of business organization, and primarily among legal entities. Since an LLC is a legal entity, accounting is vital for it, which means that accounting services will also be relevant.

There are plenty of situations when the services of an accountant for an LLC may be needed—let’s look at the most common ones.

It is known that an LLC can choose almost any taxation system. And if on imputation (UNDV) and patent the services of an accountant are minimal, then on the simplified and general system you cannot do without an accountant.

In addition, if an LLC has started accounting or has not kept records at all, then such a company will definitely need an accounting service such as restoration of accounting records.

LLC accounting services are relevant if the Company is going to take out a bank loan for business development. In this case, the bank requests a large set of accounting and constituent documentation, which is difficult to prepare efficiently without an accountant.

What determines the cost of accountant services for an LLC - 5 main factors

The cost of accountant services for an LLC, as well as the cost of accounting services for other organizational forms, is influenced by various factors.

After analyzing them, I chose the 5 most important.

Factor 1. Tax system

Each taxation system of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation corresponds to the required list of reports. This reporting can be simple to prepare (as, for example, with imputation) or complex (as, for example, with a general system).

With simplification, the value changes depending on the object of taxation. If the object is “Income”, then expenses do not need to be taken into account, accounting is simple and the cost of accounting support will not be expensive. But if the object is “Income minus expenses”, then strict accounting of all expenses of the simplifier is required, which means the cost of the accountant’s labor increases.

In addition, tax reporting, depending on the taxation system, may contain a different number of forms required to be filled out, with different deadlines for their submission, which means that filling out and submitting them requires the corresponding labor costs of a specialist.

Consequently, the more reporting forms, the more difficult they are to fill out and the more often they need to be submitted, the more expensive the cost of accounting services will be.

Factor 3. Number of business transactions per month

The monthly volume of business transactions directly affects the cost of services. Accounting services are more expensive, the greater their number.

In this case, the increase in cost occurs due to an increase in the workload of the accountant.

Factor 4. Direction of the company's activities

An LLC can conduct its activities in various areas. The cost of accounting services also depends on this factor.

For example, if foreign economic activity is carried out, then the services of a more highly qualified specialist are required - of course, such work costs much more.

Conditions for bringing the chief accountant to justice and the amount of sanctions

Criminal punishment for tax evasion and other crimes in the economic sphere is applied taking into account the following features:

1. Presence of intent. The prosecution must prove that the defendant consciously took actions aimed at breaking the law.
2. A large amount. Criminal sanctions are provided not for any tax arrears or concealment of property, but only after exceeding the established limit.

Let’s consider what punishment the chief accountant can face “to the maximum” in various situations

Option 1. Find a visiting accountant

An experienced specialist will easily cope with payments, fill out the necessary reports on time and send them to the authorities. At the same time, the costs for a visiting accountant are in most cases less than for a full-time accountant. This option is only good if you need to find not just a competent, but also a responsible specialist. To prevent the services of an incoming accountant from becoming a problem, use the following tips:

1. Find an accountant by recommendation. Surely, one of your friends will be able to recommend a trusted specialist who has already handled the accounting of a small company and has proven himself to be the best. If you don’t find them and decide to search through the ad, try to find out about the candidate’s competence from his previous clients. Errors in accounting and reporting are a serious matter, and losses due to poor-quality accounting services can be much greater than the savings on a full-time specialist.
2. Conclude a civil law agreement with the incoming chief accountant, which will specify the scope of services, terms and responsibilities. A specialist burdened with contractual obligations will not disappear at the most inopportune moment and will treat his work with greater responsibility. But keep in mind that with such an agreement, you will need to pay income tax and insurance premiums for an incoming accountant in the same way as for a full-time accountant.

Options for including rules on the responsibility of the chief accountant

There are several options for including rules on the chief accountant’s mat obligation:

1. The original text of Article 243 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation states that a material obligation must be included in the employment contract, which is drawn up and signed by the parties when hiring an employee for a given position. The wording can be taken from the text of the article and added to the contract in the appropriate paragraph.
2. You can also conclude an additional agreement on the employee’s material obligations. It is advisable to rely on the standard form, which follows from judicial practice. In addition, it must be indicated that this document is an annex to the main agreement on the basis of the same article 243 .
3. You can also include appropriate wording in the job description if it is formulated and signed by the employee as a separate part of the employment contract.