The annual report for an ApS: contents, deadline and filing

What the annual report contains

The Danish Financial Statements Act sorts companies into reporting classes, and a small ApS belongs, as a rule, to class B. The class thresholds are on erhvervsstyrelsen.dk. A class B annual report consists of these parts:

• The income statement: the year's income and costs, and at the bottom the result for the year.
• The balance sheet: assets on one side, equity and liabilities on the other, at the balance sheet date.
• The notes: the accounting policies applied and the information the law requires to be detailed, such as the number of employees and the appropriation of the result.
• The management review: a short description of the company's main activities and of significant changes in the year.
• The management statement: management's declaration that the report is prepared in accordance with the law, where the law requires it.

Many small companies may opt out of audit if they stay under the law's thresholds for balance sheet total, revenue and employees. Whether yours can, and what the report must then say about it, you check on erhvervsstyrelsen.dk. What applies specifically to the company form is on the ApS page.

Deadline and filing

The annual report must be approved at the company's general meeting and filed with the Danish Business Authority no later than six months after the end of the financial year. That is the general rule for class B. If the financial year ends on 31 December, the deadline is 30 June. The authority sends reminders, and when the deadline is missed it can impose charges on management. The current deadline and the consequences are on erhvervsstyrelsen.dk.

Corporate tax is a separate filing: the company's tax return (oplysningsskema) to the Danish Tax Agency has its own deadline and is made from the same bookkeeping. This guide is about the annual report alone.

What is Regnskab Basis?

Regnskab Basis is the Danish Business Authority's own solution on Virk for small companies' annual reports. You sign in with MitID, fill in the form with the company's figures, and the authority generates the annual report from them. Instead of typing every field you can upload an accounts file: a small text file with one line per account in the authority's standard chart of accounts and the account's amount in whole kroner. Regnskab Basis reads the file and fills in the income statement, assets and liabilities.

The standard chart of accounts is the authority's shared account numbers, which every accounting application's accounts are translated to. Your own chart may look as you like; it is the translation that has to be in place, and it sits on every account as a standard account number.

From bookkeeping to accounts file in Veneti

The Annual report page under Filings shows a financial year in two ways: as the Regnskab Basis form, line by line as Virk shows it after the upload, and as the company's own income statement and balance sheet. It opens on the newest financial year that has ended and can be switched to the year before, so you see the comparative figures.

Only booked entries count. An income statement account contributes the year's movement, a balance sheet account its balance at the year's end, and every account lands on its standard account number. Veneti books no year-end closing, so the year's result is placed in the file on the standard account for retained earnings, and earlier years' results on the account the income statement accounts roll into. Amounts are rounded to whole kroner so the balance sheet nets to exactly zero.

Click a line and you see the booked entries behind it, to the øre. It is the same principle as in the rest of the reporting: no total without the entries that make it.

How to do it

1. 1

   Finish booking the year

   Everything dated in the financial year must be booked: the last supplier invoices, depreciation, accruals and the VAT settlement. The page tells you if vouchers for the period are still in the journal.

2. 2

   Go through the notices the page shows

   The page names accounts with amounts that lack a standard account number, and accounts whose standard account Regnskab Basis does not show. Correct the account in the chart of accounts before you download the file.

3. 3

   Download the accounts file

   Download regnskabsfil gives you the file for Regnskab Basis, named with company and date. It holds one line per standard account in whole kroner.

4. 4

   Upload in Regnskab Basis

   Sign in to Virk with MitID, create the annual report for the financial year, and upload the file under Regnskabsfil. The fields are filled from the file.

5. 5

   Switch on extra fields if the page says so

   If some of your figures sit in fields Regnskab Basis hides by default, the page shows it. Switch on extra fields in Regnskab Basis before you file, or they are left out of the annual report.

6. 6

   Fill in the rest and file

   The management review, notes, appropriation of the result and the fields the file cannot fill are written in the form. Check that assets and liabilities balance, and file.

Check before you file

• The bank reconciles: the bank account balance in the balance sheet is the bank's balance on 31 December.
• Customers and suppliers reconcile: the open items are the ones that are actually unpaid.
• VAT reconciles: the balance on the VAT accounts matches what has been filed and not yet paid.
• The result for the year in the income statement is the same amount that moves to equity in the balance sheet.
• Last year's comparative figures are the figures filed last year.

If you are unsure what a line in the income statement means, Bookkeeping for beginners gives the basics, and the glossary explains annual report briefly. To see how your own accounts look in Regnskab Basis, Get started.

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