Parallel bookkeeping
The bookkeeping depicts a business transaction for the purpose of accounting . What is to be accounted for is largely or completely determined externally by the addressees of the financial statements . For different addressees, parallel bookkeeping may be necessary: What must be in the tax balance sheet can be something different than in the financial statements according to state law (in Germany, HGB ) and something different than in other required or voluntary financial statements ( IFRS or US GAAP ). The required financial statements are described by the respective accounting standards.
In every company, the bookkeeping has the task of creating the conditions for the preparation of the financial statements. From this and from the desire or need to prepare different financial statements, various financial statements result for which the accounting must provide the basis.
The need for parallel bookkeeping exists in all subordinated group companies that are fully or partially consolidated in (partial) consolidated financial statements. In addition to accounting according to their local accounting regulations - as in Germany the HGB - they must also prepare annual financial statements - mostly IFRS or US-GAAP - according to the accounting regulations of the group parent . However, the differences between annual financial statements according to local accounting regulations and tax law can also mean that books (in the general and sub-ledger) must be kept in parallel.
Basically, there are always three steps to be taken in bookkeeping, namely approach, assessment and identification. The rules for these three steps are determined by the respective accounting regulation (RLG), which also makes it clear that one and the same business transaction can differ in approach, evaluation and reporting for each RLG. This is very often the case, especially when banks keep their accounts for financial instruments.
The implementation of the parallel accounting in the general ledger can be done in different ways. The accounts method and the ledger method are usually found.
Accounts method
For 2 accounting purposes (e.g. HGB and IFRS), 3 areas can then be distinguished to which each account is clearly assigned:
The white area represents the majority of all accounts and is now used to simplify the representation. These areas are called closing groups. Further account balancing groups are available for imputed purposes or for US GAAP and the like. a. imaginable.
It is possible to make all bookings in parallel for several closing purposes, then the white area is omitted. However, an organizational link between the booking and the cancellation of a business transaction is always necessary. Even 1 year after the mandatory IFRS accounting for capital market-oriented group companies, this is only supported by very few IT systems for bookkeeping.
In the example, the business transaction "Ordering raw materials" is not shown at all, the "Acquisition of a production machine" is the same for both closing purposes (account closing group "common accounts"), but their depreciation is different in each case (account closing group "HGB" or "IFRS").
From this principle and the applicable rules for bookkeeping ( Doppik and GoB , which also have their equivalents under IFRS and US-GAAP):
Each success and inventory account is defined in each account closure group.
Each success account of an account closure group is closed via a profit carried forward account. This profit carried forward account belongs to the same closing group. So there are separate profit carryforward accounts for each closing group.
All posting lines of every posting ( posting record ) not only have to show a total of zero, but also those posting lines whose accounts belong to the same account closing group must always show a zero balance. The disadvantage of this form of parallel bookkeeping is that the chart of accounts, which applies to all accounting regulations with this method, can be very extensive, since it has to comply with the structure of the financial statements of each RLG. This is particularly important when accounting for financial instruments in accordance with IAS 39 or the future standard IFRS 9 and should therefore be avoided.
Ledger method
This method keeps a completely separate general ledger in a logical general ledger for each accounting principle. B. material subledger, accounts receivable, accounts payable etc. deliver as many posting records per business transaction as there are accounting regulations. If the functional currency of one of the specific general ledgers differs from the transaction currency of the business transaction, the subledger must also convert into the functional currency or the presentation currency (see e.g. IAS 21 ) in accordance with the valuation regulations of the respective RLG .
See also : Consolidated Financial Statements