Simplified books

A small sole proprietorship or a partnership can keep simplified books: what came in and went out, and what the business owns and owes at the end of the financial year. To Bill keeps them from the same journal, and gives you the figures for your tax return. You choose them when you turn accounting on: see Turn on accounting.

Who can keep them

Business	Simplified books
Sole proprietorship, general or limited partnership	Yes, if the last financial year’s turnover was less than CHF 500’000.
Association not required to register in the commercial register	Yes.
Foundation exempted from appointing an auditor	Yes.
Company limited by shares (AG), limited liability company (GmbH), cooperative	No: always full books.

Legal basis

• Sole proprietorships and partnerships with less than CHF 500’000 of sales revenue in the last financial year, associations and foundations that are not required to register in the commercial register, and foundations exempted from the audit requirement only keep accounts on income and expenditure and on their asset position: Art. 957 para. 2 CO.
• Legal entities, and the other businesses above that threshold, keep full accounts: Art. 957 para. 1 CO.
• Recognised accounting principles also apply to simplified books: Art. 957 para. 3 CO. The books and vouchers are kept for ten years: Art. 958f CO.

Switch to simplified books

You choose at the end of turning accounting on, or later, financial year by financial year.

1. Open Accounting › Settings, down to How your books are kept.

2. On the financial year’s line, click Switch to simplified books.

3. Choose the Legal form of the business.

4. Enter the Turnover of the previous financial year. If To Bill knows it from your books, it shows it. If the business has just been founded, tick The business was founded this year: there is no previous year.

   

5. To Bill checks the conditions. When the message Simplified books are open to you appears, add a Note for your fiduciary if you wish, then click Keep 2026 simplified.

The choice applies from this financial year and to the following ones, until you change it. Nothing is entered again: your journal stays the same, only the reports change. History of choices keeps who chose what, and when.

Going back to full books

On the financial year’s line, click Back to full books. A closed financial year keeps the way it was kept. Only the company’s administrators and its fiduciary can change how the books are kept.

Read your receipts and expenses

Open Accounting. With simplified books, the home page is Simplified books.

1. The view: Receipts & expenses, Assets or Tax form (ZH 328). The field to its left changes the financial year.
2. Export: the files for your tax return. See Export for your tax return.

The figures at the top sum up the financial year: the Receipts collected and the Expenses paid, excluding VAT, the Cash surplus, the VAT balance and what is in Cash and bank. Everything ties up with your books confirms that these figures equal your journal: Show the checks details them.

The Receipts and expenses table breaks them down by category, at the time the money moved. Then come the VAT contained in these amounts, and the Other movements of money, which have no effect on the result: private money, VAT paid to the Swiss Federal Tax Administration (FTA), investments, loans and transfers between your accounts.

Money in & out

Accounting › Money in & out lists each receipt and each payment of the cash box and the banks, with its category and its VAT. Filter by account or by type: Receipts, Expenses or Other. CSV downloads the list.

Read the statement of assets

Choose the Assets view.

• Statement of assets: what the business owns and owes, at the start and end of the financial year, and its Net worth of the business. Client and supplier invoices still open are listed one by one.
• Result by comparing net worth: the result found a second time, from the change in net worth, without private money.
• Private money: what you put into the business, and what you took out of it.

Find your figures on form 328

Choose the Tax form (ZH 328) view. To Bill carries your books over, line by line, to form 328 of the Canton of Zurich, the supplementary sheet A for simplified bookkeeping (“Hilfsblatt A mit vereinfachter Buchführung”). Each line has its number, its description in French and German, and the form’s field number.

1. Click The official form (PDF) (1) to open the canton’s form.
2. Copy each amount onto the line with the same number.
3. Complete yourself the lines shown at the top, for example the rental value of your home, private shares of costs or your personal OASI (AHV) contributions: they are not in the books and are 0 here.

Another canton

The line numbers are those of the Zurich form. If you file in another canton, carry the amounts over to your canton’s form, using the descriptions as a guide.

Export for your tax return

Click Export, at the top of the page:

File	Contents
Statement for the tax return (PDF)	Receipts and expenses, statement of assets, private movements and cash journal, to sign.
Cash journal (CSV)	One line per category and per VAT share.
Summary with the ZH field numbers (CSV)	The lines of form 328, the categories, the assets, the private movements and the checks, for your fiduciary.

The journal stays double-entry

With simplified books too, To Bill keeps a full journal. You can post an entry in it, and your fiduciary can export it to their software. See The journal and entries.