A “No paper – No entry” motto is the Holy Grail for any Belarusian accountant. With all respects to its basic meaning, we advise you to challenge the foundations of this system.

Example 1: Many types of expenses cannot be backed by usual primary accounting documents as such. There is a case in our practice, when the accrual of expenses for renting premises from an individual was based on the rental agreement and its appendixes, since the individual was a foreign citizen and didn’t want to hear a word about any bills or acts.

Example 2: Common practice in working with the group companies (so called “older sisters”) is to exchange international invoices at first, and to prepare the acts of local type a little later (much later, in fact). In such cases, it is quite permissible to make postings in accounting based on international invoices, without waiting for their proper registration under the legislation of the Republic of Belarus. This approach naturally leads to increase in control over the execution of local papers, since foreign companies often do not take to heart their importance for local accounting.

Example 3: Accruals of expenses with constant (or highly predictable) amounts. I.e. the calculation is clear and the required data is relatively easy to obtain. This may be applicable to various subscription fees (for the Internet) or scheduled equipment maintenance (if the amount is fixed) and so on. There probability of miscalculation in such early accruals is minimal, especially in case you establish the practice of dialing the suppliers to confirm the expected invoice amount.

It is important to realize, that early accruals in accounting are made way before tax deadlines. Therefore, it is probably wrong to say that this practice allows a "terrible" violation in reporting. By the time taxes are submitted, all such documents will probably have already been received by the company, and you will only need to check the previously made accruals. Moreover, this approach has a rather useful side effect - early accruals are quite stimulating to a proactive approach to reclaiming the source documents from contractors.