France FEC

What is SAF-T FEC?

FEC – “Fichier d’Ecritures Comptables”- is a summary of taxpayers’ accounting records file. It was created as the French version of SAF-T. FEC was first introduced on 1 January 2014. It must be presented to the tax authorities on request by a tax auditor, generally, with the data for an accounting year. The company must provide its accounting records file no later than 15 days after receiving the audit notification. Since 1 January 2014, the FEC, with 18 fields to be filled in for each accounting entry, must be presented to the tax authorities on demand.

If the FEC is not provided to the tax auditor, is incomplete or not compliant with the regulation, it may lead to rejection of all bookkeeping, including the rejection of all related returns and taxes (VAT, Financial Statements, corporate tax…)

What is FEC France format?

• French tax authority provides four different XML schemas. Each scheme covers the needs of client’s different tax regime / accounting:

1. format A47A-I-VII-1.xsd (BIC/IS)
2. format A47A-I-VIII-3.xsd (BNC/BA with accounting according to commercial law)
3. format A47A-I-VIII-5.xsd (BA with cash accounting)
4. format A47A-I-VIII-7.xsd (BNC with cash accounting)

The number of mandatory fields varies from 18 to 22, depending on the tax regime.

BIC/IS

2 ° If the information fields “debit” and “credit” are not present in the computerized accounting system of the company, information fields 12 and 13 can be replaced respectively by “amount” and “direction,” in the following model:

3 ° For each financial year, the first numbers of accounting entries in the file correspond to the entries for the recovery of balances from the previous financial year.

4 ° For flat files, the first line of the file contains the name of the fields, as defined in the table mentioned in 1 ° or 2 °.

VIII. – 1 ° In accordance with the second paragraph of I of article L. 47 A, all the accounting data and entries recorded in all the accounting journals for the year are submitted in a single file, called the entry file accountants, in which the entries are classified in chronological order of validation. This file is made up of entries after inventory operations, excluding centralization entries and excluding balance and expense account entry entries. It includes the entries for recovery of balances from the previous year.

2 ° For each financial year, the first accounting entry numbers in the file correspond to the entries for the recovery of balances from the previous financial year.

3 ° When the taxpayer, liable to income tax in the category of non-commercial profits or in that of agricultural profits, keeps accounts according to the rules of commercial law, the file of accounting entries contains, for each entry, ” all the accounting data appearing in the computerized accounting system of the company, the first eighteen pieces of information must necessarily correspond, in order, to those listed in the following table:

BNC/BA with accounting according to commercial law
 

4 ° If the information fields “debit” and “credit” is not present in the computerized accounting system of the company, information fields 12 and 13 can be replaced respectively by “amount” and “direction,” in the following model:

5 ° When the taxpayer, liable to income tax in the category of agricultural profits, keeps cash accounts tracing professional income and expenses, the file of accounting entries contains, for each entry, all the data accountants appearing in the company’s computerized accounting system, the first 21 pieces of information must necessarily correspond, in order, to that listed in the following table:

BA with cash accounting
 

6 ° If the information “debit” and “credit” is not present in the computerized accounting system of the company, information 12 and 13 can be replaced respectively by “amount” and “direction,” on the following model:

7 ° When the taxpayer, liable to income tax in the category of non-commercial profits, keeps cash accounts tracing professional income and expenses, the file of accounting entries contains, for each entry, all of the accounting data appearing in the computerized accounting system of the company, the first 22 pieces of information must necessarily correspond, in order, to those listed in the following table:

BNC with cash accounting
 

8 ° If the information fields “debit” and “credit” are not present in the computerized accounting system of the company, information fields 12 and 13 can be replaced respectively by “amount” and “direction,” in the following model:

9 ° For flat files, the first line of the file contains the name of the fields, as defined in the tables mentioned in 3 ° to 8 °.