E-Bilanz

Description

Electronic balance or E-Balance describes the electronic transmission of a company's balance sheet to the relevant tax office. From the year 2014 (for FY 2013) all companies are obliged to submit their balance sheet report electronically to the tax office. Legal basis for this is § 5b Income Tax Act (EStG).

E-Bilanz is based on XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language).

For those companies managing E-Bilanz submission themselves, Sage offers the "Sage E-Bilanz", an external tool that is used by all German Sage accounting products. Sage E-Bilanz requires a separate license which is not part of the German legislation.

It is not mandatory to use the Sage E-Bilanz software as E-Bilanz submissions can also be made by the tax advisor, depending on the way a company does its year end statements.

Part of the Sage E-Bilanz license is the Sage E-Bilanz Connector which acts as an intermediary between Sage X3 and Sage E-Bilanz. Sage E-Bilanz and Sage E-Bilanz Connector must be installed locally on a Microsoft Windows workstation.

The implementation of Sage E-Bilanz requires advice and consultation and an in depth-knowledge on the E-Bilanz background on the customer’s side. A collaboration with a tax advisor is usually required, as German law has specific regulations about consulting regarding tax matters.

Next to Balance Sheet (based on German Commercial Code), Profit and Loss Statement (according to cost of production method or according to cost of sales method), Statement of changes in fixed assets (Asset analysis), E-Bilanz requires additional information that is not available in standard Sage X3. For instance, statement of movements in equity, cash flow statement, statement of profit appropriation, Report of the Supervisory Board, decisions and declarations or the determination of taxable profit for sole proprietorships and partnerships. This data must be added manually by the user in Sage E-Bilanz.

Overview of the workflow:

Setup

Besides local installation of the additional software on a Microsoft Windows workstation, no specific setup is required within Sage X3.

Process

  • Using the Export to Sage E-Bilanz function (EXPEBIL) an export file containing the general accounts and their balances is created. Export is done by company and date range (usually whole fiscal year).
  • The export file is opened in the Sage E-Bilanz Connector and transferred to the Sage E-Bilanz.
  • Review and editing of the data is done in Sage E-Bilanz.
  • When done, the E-Bilanz is transferred by online transmission to the fiscal authorities.