I really have bad hand writing, so I am not sure why the Bureau of Internal Revenue or the BIR wants to see that. All of us, business owners, freelancers, and professionals, need to maintain books of accounts with the BIR. I’m glad though that I have constantly updated (and on a monthly basis) my books of accounts, because I have Permit to Use Loose Leaf, and I use mu Taxumo reports for this.
Yes, I am OC that way. Everything needs to be in order.
All About Books of Accounts
Some of us, like professionals, are given two books to maintain, while VAT entities, like my own sole proprietorship business are required to maintain 6 books. Some Sole proprietorship businesses maintain 4 books. The BIR Revenue District office stamps these books for us once we register our businesses and professions and have secured a Certificate of Registration. We can just buy columnar books in a the bookstore (4 pieces x 8 to 12 columnar books) if we are a non-vat entity… which is really most of us. For those VAT entities, you will add two books: the Subsidiary Sales journal and the Subsidiary Purchase journal. Check out this photo:
To report our entries / submit our books of accounts, these are the two options that I have done and tried:
a. Manual Books of Accounts: Basically, we write entries on our stamped books of accounts.
b. Permit to Use (PTU) Loose – Leaf books of accounts: The BIR allows you to print pages of entries / reports that can be used to submit or report to the BIR.
For B, you need to apply for this.
For this particular blog post, I will share with you how to apply for Permit-To-Use Loose-Leaf Books of Accounts
My business is a Sole Proprietorship (as mentioned) and I personally use Taxumo to keep track of my cash flow and to file and pay taxes. To understand how to use Taxumo, you just need to book a FREE onboarding call here: http://txmo.com/onboarding. You don’t need to have any accounting background to use Taxumo. You just need to know how to use a computer or a mobile phone. You also need to have internet connection.
Okay, so to activate a Taxumo account, you need to subscribe to a plan. You can check out the plans here: https://www.taxumo.com/taxumo-pricing/ If you don’t know the plan that suits you, the sign up process (which if FREE) will help suggest the plan that you should activate.
Again, signing up is FREE.
For the Books of Accounts Reports of Taxumo
When you have 1. ACTIVATED a PLAN and have 2. added your Revenue and Expenses in your Taxumo CASHFLOW Tab, you can now generate reports from the BOOKS tab of Taxumo. These reports are already in the format that BIR requires you to follow. To generate the report, simply choose the type of book you need to submit. Enter the date range. Click on Generate.
It will show you a report that is already in “columns” so you can just easily copy it row per row and column by column on your books of accounts. You can click on EXPORT too and save the file in your computer.
But if my handwriting is bad? What should I do?
Using the reports generated by your Taxumo account, you can apply for Permit to Use ore PTU Loose-Leaf books of accounts. This will allow you to just print the reports and then book bind them at the end of the year and have these books stamped at your BIR Revenue District Office.
How to do you apply for PTU Loose-Leaf Books of Accounts
Loose Leaf Accreditation Process:Step 1: Prepare the following requirements
- Photo of your COR
- Filled out Letter of Intent
- Filled out Form 1900
- 1-month sample report of each of your books (4 books total for Non-VAT / 6 books for VAT)
Step 2: Visit your RDO and submit all of your requirements.
Step 3: (Based on what I have experienced and seen) Wait for 6 weeks or more (honestly though, last year this even took a longer time to be approved as this depends on the availability of the BIR RDO officer who approves it) for the approval and release of the Permit-To-Use (PTU) Loose Leaf from the BIR.
Once approved, you’re done!
Some of the things that you need to note:
- As long as you don’t have your Permit-To-Use (PTU) Loose Leaf from the BIR, you will need to write on your books first.
- If you have PTU Loose Leaf Books of Accounts already, every January 1 of every year, export and print all the pages of your books. Make sure that it is readable. Have each book of account hard-bounded (as seen in the picture above).
- Have your books stamped at your RDO before the 15th of January every year.
That’s it! If you have questions, feel free to comment on the comment section below. Happy #Adulting!
