Commodity accounting for sole proprietorships

Starting from August 1, sole proprietors have a new obligation to keep inventory records. Read this article to find out what it is and what liability is provided for violation of this requirement.

This innovation is set forth in Article 3, paragraph 12 of the Cash Registers Law. According to this clause, all business entities that carry out cash and non-cash payments must keep records of inventory in the form prescribed by law. And they can sell only the goods that are reflected in such records. The only exception was made for individual entrepreneurs who are not VAT payers and do not sell TSPT, medicines and medical goods, as well as jewelry.

The requirement to keep inventory records applies to:

• entrepreneurs on the general taxation system;
• single tax entrepreneurs who are VAT payers;
• entrepreneurs who trade in TMT, medicines and medical products, as well as jewelry.

The Law states that accounting must be kept "in accordance with the procedure established by law," but sole proprietor ships are not subject to the rule of applying the Accounting Regulation No. 9 "Inventories." Let's figure out how a sole proprietorship should keep inventory records in this case.

Commodity accounting for entrepreneurs on the general taxation system

For entrepreneurs on the general taxation system, as well as for entrepreneurs on the single tax, there is no separate procedure for accounting for inventory. However, the tax authorities suggest that sole proprietors on the general taxation system may use the accounting rules set out in the Accounting Standards No. 9. However, it is not clear how to apply these standards in the accounting of sole proprietor ships, since they were written for legal entities.

However, if you look at court rulings, they often agree with the tax authorities. In addition, the Court of Appeal stated that tax inspectors have the right to initiate an inventory of inventories to verify their accounting.

Commodity accounting for entrepreneurs on a single tax

Just like for entrepreneurs on the general taxation system, there is no separate procedure for keeping inventory. Moreover, there are no explanations from the tax authorities that could shed light on the procedure for maintaining inventory for single tax payers.

So how do you keep inventory records for a sole proprietorship?

Since there is a rule on keeping records, but the legislators have not established how to do it, we propose to consider the most common opinion - you need to keep records of income and expenses:

1. For system-wide vendors, there is a provision for accounting for income and expenses, and they must also have documents confirming the origin of the goods.
2. For single tax payers, the courts suggest that they take care to have documents confirming the purchase of goods. In their opinion, a violation of the commodity accounting procedure is the absence of relevant primary documents confirming the order of movement of goods and materials.

Commodity accounting for individual entrepreneurs who are not VAT payers

Starting from August 1, sole proprietors on the single tax system who are not VAT payers and sell TSPT, medicines and medical devices must now keep inventory records. Therefore, the only option for such entrepreneurs is to have documents for the goods. Since such sole proprietors are allowed to record income in any form.

Entrepreneurs in Group 1 of the single tax, who are exempt from using cash registers, must also take care to have primary documents confirming the origin of the goods.

What liability is provided for trading goods without accounting

Entrepreneurs who sell "unaccounted for" goods are subject to a fine of double the value of the unaccounted-for goods at the selling price. The penalty applies to all goods sold at the point of sale and for which there are no documents. The minimum amount of the fine is UAH 170.

Based on court decisions, it becomes clear that a fine cannot be imposed if the accounting is not kept correctly, but there are documents confirming the purchase of goods.