The retail industry thrives on many small transactions. Cash, card payments, mobile payments, and gift cards all go through the register and reach your account via different channels and with varying delays. For your books to be right, daily register closings, statements from payment service providers, and bank deposits must match up day after day.
Cash register management is scrutinized closely during audits. Electronic cash registers require a TSE, a certified security device; receipts must be issued, and daily closing reports must be retained. If anything is missing or the cash on hand doesn’t match, the tax office may estimate the sales. When posting, we check whether the documentation is complete and point out any gaps right away.
In retail, merchandise is usually the largest cost category. Cash discounts, volume rebates, supplier credit memos, and returns to suppliers must be recorded correctly; otherwise, the cost of goods sold will be wrong. At year-end, there is also the inventory count, which the tax advisor needs for the financial statements.
If you run several branches or an online store alongside your shop, you want to know which location pays for itself. We post to cost centers so that the monthly report for each branch is meaningful. We then also allocate rent, staff costs, and advertising to the locations to keep the comparison fair.
Many retailers sell goods at different VAT rates side by side, such as food and beverages or books and accessories. The point-of-sale system must assign the correct rate to each item; otherwise, the advance VAT return will be wrong. We check the breakdown in the daily closings for plausibility and follow up if the share of a tax rate suddenly shifts. The tax advisor determines which rate applies to an item.
