On 23rd September 2019, the Luxembourgish Official Journal (Legilux) published the new Standard Chart of Accounts (SCA) by the Grand- Ducal Regulation (GDR) of 12th September 2019.
This text defines the content of the new Standard Chart of Accounts “SCA” (PCN in French, abbreviation of Plan Comptable Normalisé) referred to in Article 12 of the Commercial Code and it repeals the previous Grand-Ducal Regulation dated 10th June 2009.
The new SCA 2020 will be applicable to the annual accounts of financial years beginning on or after 1st January 2020, which will be filed with the Register of Commerce and Companies (RCS) from 2021 onwards. Therefore, the application dates of the new SCA are as follows:
1st January 2020: for the accounting of the financial years.
From January 2021 onwards: mandatory use of a mapping table for filling the Balance Sheets and the Profit and Loss accounts.
Aims of the new SCA
The main purposes of the new SCA 2020 are to harmonize, simplify and gain efficiency. With this in mind, the new SCA 2020 involves an improvement for all parties concerned in the process, both, Companies and the Administration.
Providing better financial information will reduce the amount of redundant forms, inquiries and information requests from the Administration to Companies. Moreover, the new SCA focuses on simplifying administrative procedures and implementing more advanced technology, which improves and accelerates the preparation of accounts, while reducing the risk of errors.
Changes and updates
In order to achieve the aforementioned objectives, some accounts have been removed and others added, merged or split. The latter involves the breakdown of existing accounts into several accounts to provide better information.
From 2021 onwards, the use of mapping tables, in terms of general ledger accounts, will be mandatory to complete the Balance Sheets and Profit and Loss accounts FY 2020 onwards. Therefore, annual accounts have to be filled in at its most detailed level (i.e. ledger accounts), which means that expressing values only in the aggregate accounts of the FCS is no longer possible.
It also should be noted that the mapping table is customizable and can be made to fit the needs of individual companies.
The abovementioned mapping tables can be downloaded from the electronic gathering of financial data platform (eCDF website) and the comparative table between SCA 2009 vs SCA 2020 can be downloaded from the Commission des Normes Comptables website (CNC webiste). In both cases, documents are available in French, German and English.
Structure
As with the previous CCS, the new one is provided in the form of a catalog of accounts with seven different account groups plus an annex to type 1 (only applicable to individuals).
Five Balance Sheet account types (1 to 5) described as follows: Group 1, equity accounts, provisions and financial liabilities; Group 2, formation expenses and fixed assets accounts; Group 3, inventory accounts; Group 4, debtors and creditors; Group 5, financial accounts. And two types of accounts for the profit and loss accounts (types 6 and 7): Group 6, expenses accounts and Group 7, income accounts.
In short, although the SCA means a streamlining of the procedures related to the Chart of Accounts and its preparation, this change also means a requirement for companies in the form of a new procedure to join.
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