When the Parent company requires you to submit financials in the tightest timeframe, that’s not the worst part. On top of this, a very common situation is the “tight” closing of the reporting period in the Group’s accounting system after you submit another consolidation package.

Why is this a serious problem? There might not be one, when the corporate reporting is prepared in the middle of the year. Take, for example, the income statement - the “amount for the reporting month” column is probably calculated as a “year-to-date” amount at the reporting date exclusive of the same amount at the previous month. Thus, all adjustments for closed months will automatically fall into the current reporting month.

However, the problem manifests itself in all glory during the transition to the new year (i.e. when preparing the December package). All other things being equal, the accounting department keeps the profit and loss accounts open for the entire quarter, until the annual balance sheet is submitted, posting all new amounts in the previous year. This casts a shadow over the life of the IFRS reporting department, since they have to "catch" all such entries and "raise" them to profit for the new year.

There is a trick to allocate the problem between departments more evenly. You’ll have to:

1. Close the reporting year for accounting department on the day of submitting the group package “tightly” as well, i.e. close the accounts 90, 91, 99 and zero out their balances.

2. Submit draft annual tax returns at the same moment.

3. Make any additional journal entries through account 84 (preferably, a separate subaccount “Income/expenses of previous years”, BUT dated current year!).

4. Submit the revised annual tax returns within the time frames prescribed by the law.

First, this inflicts no harm to tax reporting (in the end, the Inspectorate for the Inspectorate of Tax and Levies Ministry receives the updated declaration with the same figures).Second, the IFRS reporting department is disburdened from the need to track additional entries, for all of them are shown on a separate subaccount and already dated current year.