Services · Ferrara and Codigoro
We keep the accounts of sole traders, partnerships and limited companies and prepare the bilancio d’esercizio (statutory financial statements) together with its attachments. It is the Firm’s most continuous service and, as we understand it, the least ritual: the accounts are not an archive to be filled in for the tax authorities — they are the company’s information system, and the financial statements are the document in which that system is put to the test.
Businesses looking for an accountant to keep their books usually have one of three needs: bookkeeping and filings handled punctually, without having to think about them; financial statements that are correct, consistent with accounting standards and defensible before a bank or a tax audit; figures available during the year — not eleven months later — for deciding on an investment, a hire, a price. The three needs hold together only if the accounts are set up properly from the start.
We work on this with written procedures, a shared deadline calendar and a stable contact person for each client. However, no procedure makes up for documentation that arrives late or incomplete: the quality of the accounting data depends decisively on the flows the business can guarantee, and it is the first point we address when we take on a new client.
The first question is not which software to use, but what the business needs to be able to read in its own numbers. A business with several retail outlets, one working to order and a holding company with equity investments share the same obligation under civil law to keep accounting records, but their information needs differ. The chart of accounts, cost-centre coding, inventory management and the separation of activities for VAT purposes should be built around those needs before any filing requirements.
As for the obligations, an entrepreneur carrying on a commercial activity keeps the accounting records required by art. 2214 of the Italian Civil Code — the journal, the inventory book, ancillary records and correspondence — and tax law adds the VAT registers, the register of depreciable assets and, for taxpayers under simplified accounting, the substitute registers. The choice between ordinary and simplified accounting depends on legal form and turnover, but it is not only a matter of thresholds: simplified accounting reduces the burden of bookkeeping and gives up, in exchange, the balance-sheet picture.
We therefore go through with the entrepreneur what is lost and what is gained in that choice. In our experience, many businesses under simplified accounting discover they need a balance sheet at the worst possible moment, when a bank asks for one or the business has to be valued. However, opting for ordinary accounting entails permanently higher running costs and should be decided on the actual benefit, not on principle.
Legal references: artt. 2214-2220 c.c.; d.P.R. 600/1973 in materia di scritture contabili; d.P.R. 633/1972 per i registri IVA
VAT in practice · all the Firm’s services
The bilancio d’esercizio must give a true and fair view of the company’s assets, financial position and result for the year. That is the general clause of art. 2423 of the Italian Civil Code, and it is not a formula of style: when an item is contested, it is the criterion by which the question is decided. The Italian OIC accounting standards give operational content to that clause, and their application must be documented, not presumed.
The work almost always concentrates on the same areas: the valuation of receivables and the estimate of the bad-debt provision, the valuation of inventories and of work in progress on orders, the capitalisation of costs and depreciation schedules, provisions for risks and charges, the treatment of related-party transactions. These are the items where the accounts stop being a sum of entries and become a set of judgements: each requires a reasoning, a source and a trace in the nota integrativa (notes to the financial statements).
We prepare the draft financial statements in the format required for the company’s size — full, abbreviated or micro-entity — together with the notes, the management report where due and the minutes of the management body and of the shareholders’ meeting, and we handle filing with the registro delle imprese (Companies Register). However, useful financial statements are those the management body has read and discussed before approving them: if they arrive ready-made on the table on the day of the meeting, the obligation has been discharged and the purpose has been lost.
Legal references: artt. 2423 e ss., 2427, 2428, 2435-bis, 2435-ter c.c.; principi contabili OIC
statutory audit · companies and SRLs
The rhythm of the financial year is set by obligations that allow no painless recovery: periodic VAT settlements and the related communications, electronic invoicing and compliant digital preservation, withholding taxes and the related payments, annual returns, filing of the financial statements, Chamber of Commerce formalities. Every missed deadline produces penalties and — what weighs more — takes time away from more useful work.
We manage the deadline calendar so that every obligation has an owner and a working date earlier than the deadline, not coinciding with it. On the most critical items — the periodic settlements and payments — we work with a margin, because the margin is what allows an error to be corrected before it becomes a breach. When a breach has nevertheless occurred, we assess ravvedimento operoso (voluntary correction), which allows spontaneous regularisation with a reduced penalty — the more timely the correction, the smaller the penalty.
On deadlines we publish updates in the Tax Observatory and keep a deadline calendar you can consult. However, no general calendar replaces checking the individual position: options exercised, special regimes, selective extensions and deadlines that differ by type of taxpayer make each business’s calendar a case of its own.
Legal references: d.P.R. 633/1972 per gli adempimenti IVA; d.P.R. 600/1973 per ritenute e dichiarazioni; art. 13 d.lgs. 472/1997 per il ravvedimento operoso
deadlines and voluntary correction · business taxation
The least visible part of the service is the one that determines its quality: how documents reach the Firm, how often, in what format, and who answers when something is missing. Accounts updated to last month and accounts updated to eight months ago cost the Firm a similar amount of work; to the business they give incomparable information.
With each client we agree a stable flow: a single channel for sending documents, bank statements at a fixed interval, timely notice of significant contracts and of non-routine transactions, a contact person identified on both sides. Electronic invoicing has simplified the sales and purchase cycles, but it has not removed the problem: personally paid expenses, takings not documented by invoice, shareholder loans, leases, foreign transactions and intra-group dealings remain outside the automatic flow — and those are precisely the areas where errors weigh most.
We also ask to be informed before, not after, extraordinary transactions: the sale of a business unit, the entry of a new shareholder, a subsidised investment, a multi-year contract. However, we are aware that this is a demanding request for someone running a business every day, which is why we prefer a scheduled periodic contact to a generic availability.
electronic invoicing · administrative automation
Financial statements look backwards and look at the year as a whole. Deciding requires something else: margins by product line or by job, break-even point, the trend of working capital, a short-term cash forecast. These are analyses built on the same accounts — provided the accounts were set up to produce them.
We prepare interim accounting statements with accrual adjustments — accrued and deferred items, pro-rata depreciation, valuation of inventories — because an unadjusted statement is a partial, often optimistic reading. On this basis we build, where the business asks for it, an essential reporting pack: a few indicators chosen together, updated at a fixed interval and commented on. Reclassifying the balance sheet and the income statement makes different years comparable and lets you talk to the banking system in the terms in which the banking system reasons.
Management accounting also has a function that the reform of insolvency law has made relevant in terms of liability: an entrepreneur operating in corporate or collective form must put in place organisational, administrative and accounting arrangements appropriate to the nature and size of the business, including for the timely detection of crisis and of the loss of going concern. However, appropriate does not mean complex: for many smaller businesses an appropriate set-up consists of a few tools kept up regularly, and an oversized apparatus that nobody feeds is less defensible than a simple, working one.
Legal references: art. 2086, comma 2, c.c.; d.lgs. 14/2019 (Codice della crisi d’impresa e dell’insolvenza)
business crisis · the Firm’s tools
Accounts and financial statements do not live only in the relationship between the business and the Firm. They are read by third parties on precise occasions: the review of a bank credit facility, a due diligence, the entry of a new shareholder, a tax audit, corporate litigation, the appointment of the supervisory body or of the auditor once the statutory thresholds are exceeded.
On those occasions what counts is the consistency between what the financial statements declare and what the accounting records prove. Orderly, complete accounts narrow the perimeter of what can be challenged by presumption and make it possible to answer with documents rather than with reconstructions. For this reason we prepare the supporting documentation for judgement-based items — appraisals, contracts, resolutions, estimation criteria — at the moment the item is recognised, not at the moment it is asked for.
It must be said clearly, however, that impeccable accounts neither prevent an assessment nor guarantee the outcome of an audit: they reduce the area open to challenge and improve the defensive position, which is different from a guarantee. On assessments and litigation, see the page dedicated to tax audits.
tax audits and litigation · guide to tax audits
Ordinary accounting is compulsory for limited companies regardless of turnover. For sole traders and partnerships it depends on exceeding revenue limits set by the rules and updated over time, with a distinction between service activities and other activities. Those not obliged may still opt for the ordinary regime, and the option is binding for at least one financial year.
Ordinary accounting records all management events using double-entry bookkeeping and produces both the income statement and the balance sheet. Simplified accounting concentrates on the entries relevant for income tax and VAT purposes and does not return a complete picture of assets and liabilities. The first costs more to keep; the second offers less information for deciding and for dealing with banks and potential investors.
The Italian Civil Code provides that the financial statements be approved by the shareholders’ meeting within a period from the close of the financial year set by the articles of association, with a longer period possible in the cases provided by law and justified in the directors’ report. After approval, the financial statements must be filed with the Companies Register within the statutory deadline. Delay exposes the directors to administrative penalties.
Once approved, financial statements are not corrected by reopening the closed year. If a material error emerges, Italian accounting standards require it to be dealt with in the financial statements of the year in which the error is identified, with disclosure in the notes and restatement of the comparative figures. In particular cases, and where the legal conditions are met, the shareholders’ meeting may revoke the approval resolution and approve new financial statements.
No. Electronic invoices feed the sales and purchase cycles and reduce manual entries, but the accounts include what no invoice documents: bank and financial movements, depreciation, accrued and deferred items, provisions, foreign transactions, shareholder loans, closing entries. Compliant digital preservation of electronic documents is in turn a separate obligation, distinct from transmission to the Sistema di Interscambio (the Italian invoice exchange system).
It depends on the size and volatility of the business. For a business with stable margins and a regular collection cycle, an adjusted half-yearly statement is normally sufficient; for businesses with thin margins, strong seasonality or significant bank exposure, a quarterly interval is preferable. The practical criterion is how often the entrepreneur has to take decisions that depend on the numbers.
If you are considering entrusting your accounts and financial statements to us, or you would like a second opinion on financial statements already prepared, write to us from the contact page: the first thing we do is look at how the accounts are set up and at what you currently cannot read in your numbers. In the tools section you will find the deadline calendar, the Firm’s calculators and the online quote, useful for forming a preliminary idea of the work involved and its cost.
See also: Business taxation: taxes and choices
Studio PonchioSTP