GnuCash and Swedish accounting legislation

[Draug]

Liz, Michael and Gordon,

I fully understand why the law is vague, absurd and hard to interpret if 
you have a background in IT. As Michael pointed out, the law should most 
likely be interpreted as " "secure against alteration by an ordinary 
user who lacks advanced software skills". I'm not defending the Swedish 
legislation by any means.

What Liz said about CDs is a good idea, but after looking through the 
Swedish Account Standards Boards explanation of what "enduring" is, I'm 
not so sure anymore. They state that the transaction must be "locked" 
right after it has been recorded, and "locking" it every month, year or 
whatever (with burning a CD for example) is not feasible as all records 
are "preliminary" until they've been made enduring, and while the 
records are preliminary - they are not recorded at all. In short: the 
moment I make a payment, the transaction must be recorded and made 
enduring that day.

I will contact the Swedish tax authority and ask them for a list of 
software that meet the requirements of the Swedish legislation. I will 
also try to get some more legal advice from a lawyer.

On 01/19/2016 04:53 AM, GWB wrote:
> Draug,
>
> To echo Liz and Michael, I would be fascinated to see the list of
> software that meets the requirements of the Swedish legislation from
> the Swedish tax authority itself.  Have you asked them for a list, and
> could you share that information with the gnucash mailing list?  I
> could send them an email, but my Swedish is not that good.
>
> In any event, you might be able to describe to them what Liz has
> explained above (which seems brilliant), and ask them to consider the
> end of quarter (or month or year) CD as the enduring copy.  Or do a
> version of what investing firms do: produce a yearly enduring copy on
> CD, (report) and then produce quarterly revisions on CD.  The
> quarterly revisions would be nothing more than the GnuCash file report
> with whatever corrections and updates you entered in the the last 3
> months.  This gives auditors something to work with, an original and
> then corrected copies.
>
> Or, perhaps don't ask, and just do it.  They may tell you the old
> Prussian proverb applies, "What is not explicitly allowed is strictly
> forbidden".  You can then reply: "It is better to ask forgiveness than
> permission".  Or not; I have only worked slightly with US, UK, NZ and
> Caribbean accounts, and I'm not an accountant nor a lawyer.  So check
> with a few of those who know your jurisdiction.
>
> Being a Swedish citizen, I think you would be entirely justified to
> ask the tax authority to supply you the software that meets their
> requirements for free.  You could also point out that you have made a
> signifigant investment of time in using GnuCash and other financial
> software which their legislation has rendered unusable.
>
> It sounds as if Sweden is trying to implement similar requirements as
> the Dodd Frank legislation in the United States.  That's too bad.  It
> just makes more work for honest people, and rewards those (sometimes
> less honest) types who can afford to spend money on superficial
> compliance that does little or nothing to improve transparency (and
> pretty much the same effect Liz describes with the Australian Taxation
> Office).
>
> Gordon
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 2:46 PM, Liz <edodd at billiau.net> wrote:
>> On Mon, 18 Jan 2016 21:26:48 +0100
>> Draug <draug at kolabnow.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I've replied with some more questions regarding where they draw the
>>> line, as I pointed out pretty much everything can be edited or redone
>>> if you want to. But it still seems I'm out of luck using GnuCash for
>>> my company. Is there anything I can do in GnuCash to satisfy the
>>> demands of the Swedish accounting legislation? Otherwise I might have
>>> to redo all my accounting in some other program..
>>
>>
>> Every week, or other period, burn a copy of your data file(s) to a CD-R.
>> Call the latest one your enduring copy.
>>
>> Disclaimer: I live in Australia, and if someone makes a stupid law, we
>> work around it, because that is our culture. This contributes to the
>> most complex tax system devised as the ATO chases intelligent people
>> working out ways not to pay their share.
>>
>> Liz
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